McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — The number of migrants apprehended along the Southwest border in June hit a new high so far this fiscal year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced on Friday.
Border authorities encountered a total of 188,829 migrants trying to enter the U.S. illegally in June. The majority were single adults and 34% were repeat crossers, according to CBP data released Friday afternoon.
The rates follow a trend that began when President Joe Biden took office. Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said the “numbers show that the Biden border crisis is not going to stop until the Biden administration reverses course on its open-borders policies.”
The June figures represent a 4.5% increase from apprehensions along the Southwest border in May, when 180,641 migrants were encountered. And it represents a whopping 471% increase from June 2020 during the height of the pandemic, when the Trump administration was not allowing anyone to enter the country due to Title 42 in order to quell the spread of coronavirus.
Title 42 is still in effect and could expire on Wednesday.
But since late January, migrant families with young children under age 7 have been allowed into South Texas in the Rio Grande Valley after the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas told the Biden administration it would not accept returned tender age migrant children. Mexican officials say they do not have the infrastructure to properly care for and house young migrant children.
That has led most to try and cross into the Rio Grande Valley in towns like Hidalgo, Roma and Mission.
The number of families who tried to cross the border increased by 25% in June to 55,805, up from 44,746 in May, CBP reports.
The number of single adults who tried to cross the Rio Grande, however, did decline slightly, down 3% from May. But the number of unaccompanied migrant children increased by 5% with 15,253 encounters in June, up from 14,137 in May, CBP reported.
Most troubling, CBP officials said, were migrants who tried to cross in desolate and dangerous areas, like West Texas and remote and rural brushlands near Presidio.
“We are in the hottest part of the summer, and we are seeing a high number of distress calls to CBP from migrants abandoned in treacherous terrain by smugglers with no regard for human life,” CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement. “Although CBP does everything it can to locate and rescue individuals who are lost or distressed, the bottom line is this: the terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving.”
The terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving.”
CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller
A total of 104,907 migrants were expelled back over the border in June under Title 42, which CBP said was “the majority of all June encounters.”
The Biden administration halted and terminated the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols program knowns as “Remain in Mexico.” And the Department of Homeland Security in June announced that it was expanding the pool of migrants in MPP who would be eligible to apply for asylum in the United States, including those whose cases had previously been closed or ruled on.
DHS has reached out to several non-governmental organizations in South Texas, which are working with migrants south of the border to help locate those eligible to apply for asylum.
On Friday, DHS reported that as of June 30, the agency has processed more than 12,000 migrants who had previously been returned to Mexico under MPP.