July detentions on Mexico border pass 20-year high

The number of migrants detained along the Mexico border crossed a new threshold last month, exceeding 200,000 for the first time in 21 years, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement data released Thursday.

Among the 212,672 migrants taken into U.S. custody in July were 82,966 family members and 18,962 unaccompanied teenagers and children, an all-time high, and whose custody requirements have once more overwhelmed the Biden administration as it struggles to care for them safely in the middle of the pandemic.

Officials had predicted that the volume of people crossing the border would decline with the summer heat. Instead, Central American adults and children are crossing again in large groups of 300 or more, and U.S. border facilities are jammed with migrants shoulder to shoulder in detention facilities.

More than 15,000 minors who arrived without parents are in government custody, many sleeping in grim military barracks. A South Texas park has been converted into a sprawling quarantine camp for more than 1,000 parents and children who have tested positive for the virus or been exposed to infection.

The July arrest total marked a 13 percent increase from June, and was the second-highest number of arrests along the Mexico border on record, according to CBP statistics. Authorities have stopped more than 1.3 million migrants since October.

The monthly data compiled by CBP is a gauge of enforcement activity along the border, rather than a count of distinct individuals. CBP figures show 27 percent of border-crossers who were taken into custody in July had been previously arrested.