The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released statistics related to the flood of migrants pouring over the border illegally and they show more than 200,000 individuals were encountered in July — the largest number in 21 years.
CBP encounters with unaccompanied alien children (UAC) increased 24 percent from June to July, with the average number of unaccompanied children in CBP custody at 1,363 a day, compared to an average of 794 a day in June.
“In July, U.S. Customs and Border Protection played an important role in our nation’s ongoing economic rebound, facilitating a continued growth of legitimate travel and trade, while protecting consumers and our country’s agriculture,” Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said in a press release announcing the report. “Commercial trucks this fiscal year are transiting through our ports of entry at higher numbers than they did in Fiscal Year 2019, while passenger vehicle, pedestrian travel, and air travel numbers are bouncing back from a comparable period in 2020 affected by the pandemic.”
“CBP continues to take necessary measures to safely manage the Southwest Border and protect the health of communities, personnel, and migrants themselves,” Miller said.
Miller claimed because the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)emergency health guidelines, Title 42, was still in place people were being regularly expelled despite the growing surge into the U.S.
“The vast majority of single adults and many families continue to be expelled under the CDC’s Title 42 authority, and those who cannot be expelled under Title 42 and do not have a legal basis to remain are placed in expedited removal proceedings,” Miller said. “CBP has also adapted to changing dynamics between ports of entry along the Southwest Border, continuing to take steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 by expelling roughly half of those encountered under CDC’s Title 42 public health authority.”
But the numbers reveal a porous southwest border with Mexico, including 212,672 encounters in one month. Of those, 27 percent were individuals who had at least one prior crossing encounter in the past 12 months — up from 14 percent for Fiscal Years 2014-2019.
Other stats include:
- A majority (52 percent) of encounters continue to be single adults, with 110,443 encounters in July, a 6 percent decrease from June.
- 95,788 encounters, more than 45 percent of the total, were processed for expulsion under Title 42. 116,884 encounters were processed under Title 8.85,563 encounters involving single adults (78 percent) were processed for expulsion under Title 42, with 24,880 processed under Title 8.
- 9,948 encounters involving family unit individuals (12 percent) were processed for expulsion under Title 42, with 73,018 processed under Title 8.
- A total of 845,307 unique individuals have been encountered year-to-date during Fiscal Year 2021, compared to 796,400 during the same time period in Fiscal Year 2019.
- So far in Fiscal Year 2021, U.S. Border Patrol agents along the Southwest Border have placed more than 60,500 migrants who cannot be expelled under Title 42 in Expedited Removal proceedings.
- Encounters of family unit individuals increased by 49 percent from 55,839 in June to 82,966 in July—still below the peak of 88,587 encounters in May 2019. The number of encounters with family unit individuals so far this fiscal year (328,121) remains below the number of encounters at the same point in Fiscal Year 2019 (474,545).
UPI reported on remarks by Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to reporters about the chaos on the border:
“The situation at the border is one of the toughest challenges we face,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday in a news conference at the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. “It is complicated changing and involves vulnerable people at a time of a global pandemic.”
“The Biden administration has extended Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allows border officials to immediately expel migrants found between ports of entry where a communicable disease such as COVID-19 is present,” Mayorkas said.
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