U.S Customs and Border Protection officers encountered more migrants at the southern border in the last 12 months than during any year on record, as the Biden administration continues to struggle with a confluence of circumstances spurring the largest surge of border crossings in decades.
CBP released operational statistics for September Friday, showing a nearly 10% decline in unique encounters from the previous month. Most migrants detained were promptly expelled under Title 42 public health authority, but all unaccompanied children and many families were allowed to remain in the U.S. while their cases are processed.
In total, CBP reported almost 1.66 million border encounters in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the largest number since data was first collected in the 1960s. Although crossings have begun to slow from their 21-year peak earlier this summer, numbers remain elevated heading into the fall, and there are reportedly tens of thousands more migrants currently heading north through Central America toward the U.S.
“CBP encounters along the Southwest border declined in September from the prior month, and a majority of noncitizens encountered were expelled under Title 42,” CBP acting Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement. “The men and women of CBP continued to rise admirably to the challenge, despite the strain associated with operating during a global pandemic that has claimed far too many lives among our frontline personnel.”
The record number of arrests is certain to increase political pressure on President Joe Biden, who has drawn criticism from Republicans for rolling back many of former President Donald Trump’s border policies and from progressives for leaving some of them – including Title 42 – in place. His efforts to advance immigration reform in a divided Congress have seemingly stalled.
At a CNN town hall last week, Biden defended preserving the Title 42 restrictions, citing the “very, very high” rate of COVID-19 infections in Central America. He also insisted he still aims to end the Migrant Protection Protocols – a Trump-era program requiring migrants to remain in Mexico while their cases are processed that Biden has been ordered by a federal judge to reinstate – as soon as he can legally do so.
“President Biden caused this border crisis and is now planning to make it even worse,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote in a Fox News op-ed, urging Biden to declare a national emergency.
The White House and its allies deny Biden bears responsibility for the surge, pointing to natural disasters, economic disruption, and political upheaval in Central and South America that have sent many searching for a better, safer life. They argue more must be done to ensure people apprehended at the border are processed quickly and treated humanely.
“People don't just sit around their hand-hewn table and say, ‘I got a great idea: Let's sell everything we have, give it to coyote, let them take us across the border, drop us in a desert, a place they don't want us. Won't that be fun?’” Biden told CNN. “People do it because they're desperate.”
In a letter to Biden Saturday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., called the 2021 figures “alarming” and requested a meeting with the president about the situation at the border. He also cautioned against “mass amnesty provisions” in the reconciliation bill Democrats are crafting, claiming any new benefits for undocumented immigrant would encourage more people to come.
“CBP has arrested over 1.4 million individuals illegally crossing the border since you took office, and the total number of encounters this fiscal year is at an all-time high. There is no question there is an unprecedented crisis,” McCarthy wrote.
While immigration experts acknowledge border crossings are unusually high, creating a severe strain on federal resources, they say the situation is not as unprecedented as it might seem. The last time border encounters topped 1.6 million in 2000, CBP estimated over 2 million additional migrants successfully evaded capture entering the country, but security has improved significantly since then.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, stressed about one-third of the migrants detained in the last fiscal year were repeat offenders who had been previously deported. He also noted most of those arrested were quickly deported, despite allegations by Republicans that Biden’s immigration policies amount to “open borders.”
“In no way, shape, or form does the fact that there were 1.7 million border arrests mean that 1.7 million people were admitted into the United States,” Reichlin-Melnick said on Twitter. “The border remains shut for most asylum-seekers and hundreds of thousands have been turned away under both Trump and Biden.”
Although the increase in border apprehensions from 2020 to 2021 was the largest on record, attempted crossings were atypically low during the height of the pandemic when borders were completely closed. Eric Hershberg, director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, noted the difference from fiscal year 2019, when about 978,000 arrests were reported, to 2021 is far less dramatic.
“It is remarkable that the increase in unique encounters has risen less than 20% despite the social and economic devastation brought about by the pandemic and the extreme weather events that buffeted Central America a year ago,” Hershberg said.
Still, those who favor more immigration restrictions say the record number of encounters should trigger a reassessment of Biden’s approach.
“These apprehension statistics should be a wake-up call to the Biden administration that border policy changes are needed, stat,” said Andrew Arthur, a resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, in a blog post.
Experts say the extent to which U.S. border policies drive migration flows is difficult to determine. The current surge began in late 2020 when Trump was still in office, and large numbers of single adults continue to try cross every month even though the Biden administration expels the vast majority of them.
The sudden increase in children and families arriving at the border does seem to have some connection to the administration easing Title 42 enforcement against them. The number of unaccompanied children detained at the southern border in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 was the highest since 2008.
Media interviews with migrants have indicated many believe, rightly or wrongly, that they have a better chance of getting into the U.S. under Biden. It is also true that Biden’s policies have allowed more children and families to enter the country while their asylum cases are pending, but many other factors influencing migration are beyond the federal government’s control.
“My sense is that the impact of U.S. policies on the number of crossings is limited,” Hershberg said. “The main drivers are ‘push factors,’ on the one hand, and the fact that migrants have some social/family connections in the U.S., making the U.S. a more attractive destination than others.”