More migrants said sneaking in
‘Got-aways’ nearly 1,000 a day
Nearly 1,000 people per day are sneaking into the United States without being identified or taken into custody because U.S. border agents are busy attending to migrant families and unaccompanied children while also trying to stop soaring numbers of male adults, according to three U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials familiar with the data.
While the agency has never claimed to interdict every border crosser, the number of so-called got-aways recorded in recent weeks is the highest in recent memory, said two of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the data. The agency defines a got-away as an individual who is not turned back to Mexico or apprehended, and is no longer being actively pursued by Border Patrol.
Counting got-aways is not an exact science, but Customs and Border Protection has spent more than $1 billion over the past two decades on surveillance technology and camera networks that have given the agency far greater ability to detect illegal crossings in real time. Apprehending those individuals is another matter.
When migration levels surge, as with the current influx, border agents spend significant amounts of time transporting and processing families and unaccompanied minors, who generally do not attempt to evade capture, turning themselves in and seeking humanitarian refuge in the United States.
Department of Homeland Security officials say they expect border crossings to leap to a 20-year high this year. The number of migrants taken into custody by agents in March is projected to top 160,000 — the highest onemonth total since March 2006 — and include more than 18,000 teenagers and children who arrived without parents, a record.
A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Border Patrol Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz said during a podcast in February that the agency had recorded 1,000 got-aways on a single day, describing that as an unusual event. But since then, the figure has become a new normal.
The number of single adults caught by Border Patrol in March exceeded 90,000, according to the most recent data. Customs and Border Protection returned most of those adults to Mexico using the public health order that has been in place since March 2020. It has allowed U.S. authorities to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection in immigration jails, but it has also facilitated a much higher recidivism rate as adults try to sneak in again and again until they succeed.
The number of got-aways has been especially high in southern Arizona, according to two agents there, as smaller groups of individuals, some carrying drugs, have been hiking through remote areas that would require time-consuming interdictions. It appears that smuggling organizations are sending “small groups of two, three or four, and that quickly occupies all the agents available to go after them,” said one agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“There are maybe 20 groups a day that are observed, but there’s nobody to try to go after them,” the agent said. “They just keep walking until they’re out of sight.”
Rodolfo Karisch, a retired Border Patrol official who served as chief in the Tucson and Rio Grande Valley sectors, said commanders will often deploy special units with helicopters, boats and other equipment to “work along the flanks” after the arrival of large groups with urgent humanitarian needs. “But they can get overwhelmed, too, especially if they run into people in distress who require aid,” he said.
Karisch said the soaring numbers are a “recipe for disaster” heading into the summer months, because more migrants will attempt to cross through remote areas. “Smugglers tell them to walk north a few miles, but it’s a lie, and that’s how people die in the desert,” he said.