Customs and Border Protection announced this week that Border Patrol agents apprehended 96,974 illegal border crossers in February. That's the largest number of apprehensions since the border surge of 2019 when Border Patrol agents apprehended 99,273 and 132,856 in April and May, respectively. The February number is 45% higher than the number from February of 2019, suggesting that this spring's numbers could be much larger than 2019.
While the majority of illegal border crossings were single adults, the number of family units and unaccompanied minors crossing the border is becoming more significant. The number of single adults has increased by 13.5% since November's presidential election, but the number of unaccompanied minors is up 108% and the number of family units is up by more than 350%.
Overall, CBP had more than 100,000 encounters of inadmissibles in February. In addition to the more than 96,000 illegal border crossers, 3,467 encounters occurred at a port of entry. Interestingly, that number is significantly lower than the number from the same period in 2019, suggesting that aliens believe they have a better chance of remaining in the country after crossing the border illegally under Pres. Biden then under former Pres. Trump.
February's encounters were the largest number of encounters in the month since 2006
For more, see CBP's website.
