The data released by the CBP on Thursday show that in November, border patrol agents apprehended a daily average of nearly 1,574 border crossers, a total of 47,214 people attempting to enter the country illegally.
The increase in migration has nearly reached the levels seen in the migrant crisis in the summer of 2014 at our southwest border. It has been driven primarily by families. The CBP says the influx is mainly increased migration from Central America, Haitian nationals from Brazil and Cuban nationals.
There has also been an increase in the numbers of people seeking asylum in the U.S. The total number of migrants apprehended at the border is up over 100 percent from last year during October and November. The CBP also says the total number of family units apprehended in Oct. and Nov. accounted for one-third of the entire number of apprehensions for all of the last year.
ABC News is reporting that Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan said at a recent congressional hearing: “The Border Patrol is dedicating a tremendous amount of resources taking those folks in, processing them. At times [a] lot of resources are dedicated to being professional child care providers at this point.”
Morgan pointed out that humanitarian care was affecting the CBP’s ability to perform its national security mission properly. “I am taking a considerable amount of resources and agents away from the border to [t]ake care of this,” he said.
The U.S. has seen a significant increase in migrants trying to cross our southwest border since July this year. Houston’s Click2 reported in July that the vast majority of migrants were from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. And again, as it has been in the last few years, smugglers abandon children as young as two-years-old, leaving border patrol agents to become babysitters.
The steep increases, bordering on reaching 2014 levels is causing great concern. Congress has spent $750,000,000 over the past year attempting to improve conditions in Central America, but the aid has not been very effective because the migrants keep coming.
In response to the influx of migrants, the CBP has opened two temporary holding facilities in Tornillo and Donna, Texas, capable of holding 500 people each. The CPB has also temporarily deployed an additional 150 agents to the Rio Grande Valley, an area seeing the greatest increase in attempts to cross the border.
The increase in migrants trying to get into the U.S. will likely become a major political issue as President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month because he has promised to secure our borders, and in particular, our southern border. And despite the threats, the migrants, many of them fleeing for their lives, will keep coming.
