Illegal border crossings at the southern border dropped sharply in June, much to the delight of the Biden Administration, but the number of illegal aliens who tried to enter at ports of entry along the border increased for the second straight month.
There were 211,575 encounters of illegal aliens at and between ports of entry in June, compared to 275,245 in May. But those numbers don't include illegal aliens who were paroled into the country through ports of entry not located along the southern border. The Biden Administration has been urging would-be illegal border crossers to schedule appointments at any port of entry through its CBP One phone app or by applying for one of the 140,000 parole spots that it's offering to aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
June marked the 16th consecutive month that total border encounters of illegal aliens at the southern border exceeded 200,000. June's 211,575 encounters is more than double the total number of illegal-alien encounters at the southern border in June 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and nearly four times the number of encounters in June 2018.
Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller stated:
Our sustained efforts to enforce consequences under our longstanding Title 8 authorities, combined with expanding access to lawful pathways and processes, have driven the number of migrant encounters along the Southwest border to their lowest levels in more than two years. We will remain vigilant.
Border Patrol apprehensions of illegal aliens subject to Title 8 enforcement fell below 100,000 for the first time since February 2021 (97,643). Border Patrol agents at the Southwest border apprehended 99,545 illegal entrants last month. Illegal border crossers who are apprehended and subject to Title 8 are put into deportation proceedings, but because of the overwhelming number of illegal border crossers over the last two years, many are released into the United States with instructions to check in at an ICE office.
CIS's Andrew Arthur says "the worst is likely yet to come."
Of those nearly 100k apprehensions, almost 34,000 were Mexican nationals, and 22,246 were from the "Northern Triangle" countries of El Salvador (2,042), Guatemala (9,547), and Honduras (10,657). The remaining 43,000-plus were from much farther abroad, including more than 12,500 Venezuelan nationals, 3,915 Colombians, 2,225 Brazilians, 2,513 nationals of India, and 2,122 Chinese nationals.
Ominously, nearly 11,500 apprehended illegal entrants were from "other" countries, a catchall for aliens who crossed the Southwest border illegally from countries other than the top 20 traditional sending countries.
Arthur warns, "The biggest mistake you can make when looking at these numbers (and the one that the administration will be peddling) is to conclude the border is returning to 'normal' after being roiled by 'hemispheric conditions' that have fueled 'the highest levels of irregular migration since World War II.' Nothing could be farther from the truth."
The lurking figures within DHS's monthly total are the "Title 8 Apprehensions." The Biden Administration ended Title 42 at 11:59 PM EDT on May 11; consequently, all illegal aliens apprehended in June are "Title 8 apprehensions," i.e., all encountered aliens not expelled under Title 42.
The CIS analysis goes on to explain the situation by comparing CBP's June Title 8 apprehensions and its other Title 8 apprehensions in FY 2023 (year to date) to prior months and fiscal years.
Prior to March 2022, Border Patrol's Southwest Border Title 8 apprehensions never exceeded 100,000 since, again, April 2007, with the sole exception of May 2019. They then exceeded 101,500 last March and jumped above 120,000 last May before declining to the low 100ks during the summer, and then hit 135,125 in September before skyrocketing above 170,000 in December. Title 8 apprehensions thereafter declined to 63,000 in January and to 54,375 in February before jumping again to just short of 100,000 in April and then to approximately 140,000 in May — as migrants crossed just in advance of and directly after the end of Title 42.
[In total] Border Patrol has already made more than 963,000 Title 8 apprehensions in the first nine months of FY 2023, putting it on track to make nearly 1.285 million Title 8 apprehensions in FY 2023.
That would be the largest number of Title 8 apprehensions at the Southwest border in any year since FY 2000 when agents apprehended a then-record 1,673,649 illegal entrants there.
According to Arthur, major demographic shifts in illegal aliens in the past two decades make the 1.285 million apprehensions in FY 2023 much worse than those nearly 1.674 million apprehended in FY 2000. He explains,
More than 1.615 million of the illegal entrants apprehended at the Southwest border in FY 2000 — 98.2 percent of the total — were from Mexico, and fewer than 29,000 of them were "other than Mexicans" (OTMs). Nearly all those illegal Mexican entrants were single adults, mostly men, coming to work.
Border Patrol agents can process single adult migrants from Mexico in about eight hours and send them back across the border through the closest port of entry.
Of the 963,000-plus illegal entrants apprehended by Border Patrol and processed under Title 8 thus far in FY 2023, fewer than 128,000 (13.3 percent) are Mexican nationals, and fewer than 79,000 (8.2 percent) are single adults from Mexico.
That means that 86.7 percent, or nearly 836,000 Title 8 apprehensions at the Southwest border this fiscal year are OTMs; just over 491,000 of them single adults, more than 268,500 (27.9 percent) adults traveling with children in "family units" (FMUs), and 76,000-plus unaccompanied alien children (UACs).
Focusing just on the OTM single adults and families, those demographic groups are the most difficult for CBP to handle. Even if they are subjected to expedited removal and don't make fear claims, agents must first process them, then get them a travel document, and finally arrange to fly them back home. That takes, in a best-case scenario, at least a week.
Of course, aliens aren't going to pay smugglers thousands to tens of thousands of dollars simply to get them to the Southwest border, where they will be quickly removed. Consequently, those smugglers will tell them exactly what to say to ensure they aren't subject to expedited removal and aren't returned in a best-case scenario in a week.
The CIS analysis of this month's border apprehensions concluded, "What I haven't said but will discuss later is that OFO encounters at the Southwest border ports hit their highest level in history, largely due to the CBP One app interview scheme. It's just one of the tools the administration is using to funnel illegal migrants into the country and hide the border disaster it created. For now, June's apprehension numbers are bad enough — and worse than they appear. You can bet they will get much worse once smugglers figure out the "Circumvention of Lawful Pathways" rule loopholes."
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