According to Customs and Border Protection, illegal immigration surged significantly in March after a couple months of steady yet deceptive decline. Some report that the increase indicates that the Biden Administration’s new program attempting to discourage illegal border crossers is losing its teeth.
Last month, Border Patrol agents saw a staggering 32,000 alien jump in apprehensions of illegal border crossers compared to February. In total, Border Patrol apprehended 162,317 illegal aliens who crossed the southern border.
This included 11 more aliens whose names appeared on the government’s terrorist watchlist.
Additionally, the rising numbers are raising concerns over next month’s expected end of Title 42, the CDC’s public health order that allowed rapid expulsion authority to DHS.
The Office of Field Operations also recorded 29,582 encounters with inadmissible aliens at America’s ports of entry. This brings the total March illegal alien encounters to 191,899
The Washington Times reports:
The numbers were released Monday evening, just ahead of two days of testimony on Capitol Hill by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
In testimony last month he had celebrated the new program to try to encourage illegal immigrants to come in a more orderly fashion, pointing to a severe drop in the numbers of Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans sneaking across the boundary.
Their numbers remain much lower than the record levels set late last year. But increases in Mexicans, Central Americans, Colombians, and Peruvians have eaten into that success.
Thankfully, the March total remains much lower than just three months prior when the Biden Administration set the record for monthly illegal alien encounters at 252,012.
While announcing the March totals, Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller celebrated the fact that Border Patrol apprehensions were down 23% in March 2023 compared to March 2022.
“But,” as The Washington Times put it, “every other measure was grim.” Compared to February, BP apprehensions were up 25%, OFO encounters rose 13%, and over encounters jumped 23%. Overall encounters fell just 14% compared to March 2022.
“And when the northern border and other entry points such as airports are included, overall illegal immigration was actually higher last month than in March 2022,” adds The Washington Times.
March marks the halfway point of fiscal year 2023, so far CBP has recorded more than 1.5 million illegal entries nationwide.
You can read the complete story here.
