Biden migrant rise sets record for most arrests at the southern border
The Border Patrol set its previous record for arrests along the southern border in fiscal year 2021, according to new data Friday, which puts a deep exclamation mark on President Biden’s management of the border.
The 1,659,206 arrests recorded over the past 12 months top the fiscal year 2000, the former record holder, with around 15,000.
Of those arrested by the Border Patrol, nearly 500,000 were either released directly or handed over to other federal agencies in the United States without an immediate clear path toward deportation, signaling that most of them were likely to be released to the country.
In addition to the border patrol snatching illegal immigrants trying to sneak in between the ports of entry, officers along the southern border encountered another 75,000 illegal immigrants trying to get through the official border crossings without permission.
In September alone, Border Patrol Agents and Customs and Border Protection officers recorded 192,001 encounters with illegal immigrants. It is the worst September ever, although the numbers are a slight improvement in July and August, with more than 200,000 meetings recorded each month.
Almost all the chaos has happened in the eight months since President Biden has held the reins, and 83% of the border patrol’s annual arrests came during this time.
“Month after month since President Biden took office, the situation at our southern border is only getting worse,” the rep said. Kevin McCarthy, Republican Leader of the House.
Mr. Biden has not yet visited the border, though he said at a town hall this week that he reckons he is late. He blamed his delay on the many crises and disasters he has to deal with.
He has assigned Vice President Kamala Harris to try to stem the flow of people leaving their homes in Central America to head north, saying the problem is conditions that are forcing them to leave.
Security experts say the bigger explanation is Mr Biden’s changes in domestic policy, which have eased enforcement and given migrants hope that they might gain a foothold here. In many cases, they are correct.
During the last full month under President Trump in December, only 17 people captured and released border patrol agents. In July, under Mr. Biden, this number was more than 60,000.
Adding to Mr Biden’s challenge is that the migration problem has gone around the world. More than 36% of those who encountered in September – a record number – were from outside Mexico or the central Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
This means that even if Mrs Harris’ focus on Central America had paid dividends, it would not have come close to solving the border problem.
The Biden administration has erased most of the harsh policies the Trump administration introduced after the border increase in 2019. But it has retained a key policy, authority in section 42, that has allowed immediate deportation of many illegal immigrants due to the coronavirus pandemic.
A majority of migrants encountered over the past year have been deported.
Among the brighter places in September was a decline in the number of illegal immigrant children traveling without parents, which has been among the most worrying cases. Fewer than 15,000 were apprehended a month, down from heights closer to 19,000 over several months earlier in the year.
The fiscal year 2021, which ended September 30, was still the worst year ever for the unaccompanied minors with nearly 147,000 nabbed over the past 12 months. During the late spring, they had gathered at border patrol stations and created a humanitarian crisis.
The country is also likely to set a record for borderline deaths in 2021, based on the pace through this summer.
Seizures of methamphetamine and fentanyl also set new records, with fentanyl in particular more than doubling from 2020, which had been the previous record.
Agents say that the more drugs seized, the more will get through.
September, in addition to the large number of illegal crossings, also experienced an unprecedented situation in Texas, where about 15,000 Haitians crossed the Rio Grande and established a beach head on the American side. Homeland Security fought to treat them and released the vast majority of them deeper into the United States
The department also faces allegations of abuse and mistreatment of Haitians, with images of border patrol agents on horseback trying to block some migrants. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised that an investigation should be completed in “days”, but nothing has been released.
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