Families behind surge at Arizona-Mexico border

The number of migrants apprehended along the Arizona-Mexico border increased over 50 percent last year, driven by large amounts of families, according to new statistics from the federal government.

TUCSON – The number of migrants Border Patrol agents apprehended along the Arizona-Mexico border increased more than 50 percent last year, according to newly released statistics from the federal government.

The increase was driven in large part by larger numbers of families and minors turning themselves in to agents.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection — the agency in charge of securing the U.S.-Mexico border — released its enforcement statistics on Tuesday for the fiscal year 2018, which started in October 2017 and ended in September 2018.

The number of apprehensions in Arizona mirror the trends along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, which also saw a massive spike in the number of migrant families and minors. However, the total number of Border Patrol apprehensions remains at some of the lowest points in decades.

That didn’t stop the administration of President Donald Trump from sounding the alarm and calling it a crisis, especially with the arrival of larger numbers of families and minors to the border.

According to CBP’s statistics, the total number of apprehensions along the border for fiscal year 2018 rose to 396,579, a 30 percent increase compared with the previous year, when uncertainty over Trump’s surging presidency led to a 46-year low in the number of apprehensions.

The latest numbers show that migrant families and minors accounted for nearly 40 percent of all Border Patrol apprehensions at the Southwestern U.S. border.

That’s one of the highest shares ever recorded, and a large shift from as recently as five years ago when single adults made up the overwhelming majority of migrants apprehended.

“The unique nature of the border crisis today is that the aliens are being apprehended but they can’t be removed,” a senior administration official said on Tuesday during a background call with reporters to discuss the numbers.

The two officials on the call said that because a larger share — about 40 percent — of all migrants arriving to the border are families and minors, hailing mostly from Central America and seeking asylum in the United States, they cannot be deported as quickly and instead are released into the community.

The administration also criticized judges handling the cases and is seeking modifications in the current system to allow the return of entire Central American families as well as minors.

But the problem is not the the laws in place governing the asylum process and the treatment of minors in government custody, according to Adam Isacson, a border expert with human-rights advocacy group Washington Office for Latin America.

“It’s a flaw in how we’re putting that law into practice,” Isacson said. “We only have 350 immigration judges to deal with a backlog of 750,000 cases. I think the fact is the world in general, and countries near us, are on fire right now, and the new normal is that we’re gonna have a large flow of people asking for protection.”

He pointed to the fact that the Central American countries where many of the migrant families and minors are coming from continually rank among the deadliest in the world as a reason these migrants merit protection.

Along Arizona’s portion of the U.S. border, the increases in the number of minors and families arriving here has been even more pronounced this past year, even though the Rio Grande Valley in Texas easily remains the busiest gateway for their arrival.

In all, Border Patrol agents apprehended 78,416 migrants at the Tucson and Yuma sectors, which cover all of the Arizona’s 372-mile-long boundary with Mexico.

The number of families agents encountered on the state’s border surged a whopping 140 percent compared with 2017, and the number of minors increased 60 percent. Those are by far the largest percentage increases along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

The information released Tuesday shows that almost exclusively all of the families border agents apprehended at the border hailed from the three Central American countries in the Northern Triangle — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Guatemalan migrants accounted for nearly half of all families.

Similarly, nearly two-thirds of the minors whom agents encountered at the border hailed from Northern Triangle countries, with Guatemalans accounting for the largest share.

The number of families agents apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border climbed each month this past year, reaching its peak in September. This occurred despite the Trump administration’s efforts to deter them by enforcing a zero-tolerance policy on illegal crossings that resulted in nearly 3,000 children forcibly removed from their parents.

Trump signed an executive order ending the practice in June, but there are 245 minors still waiting to be reunited with their parents, federal officials said.

Customs officers stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border also experienced large increases in 2018 in the numbers of Central American families and minors presenting themselves at the ports of entry.

The number of “inadmissibles” — the term CBP uses to refer to migrants they deem as not having a legal right to enter the United States — increased only 11 percent this past year.

The number of families presenting themselves to port officials rose significantly to 53,901, an 83 percent increase compared with 2017.

As with Border Patrol apprehensions, ports of entry in south Texas had the largest numbers of migrants presenting themselves at the border crossings, followed by the California border.

In recent months, thousands of migrants have camped out at ports of entry along the entire border waiting for a chance to seek asylum in the United States. Some of them have waited for up to four to six weeks to talk to an immigration officer in some areas such as Tijuana, according to migrant advocates.

On other parts of the border, advocates have complained that border officials on both sides of the international boundary are using threats and misinformation to systematically turn away migrants from the ports of entry.

The lagging wait times to seek asylum at border crossings and accusations of migrants being turned away are at the center of a lawsuit that advocates filed against the federal government.

Trump administration officials said Tuesday they expect those long wait times to continue, so long as migrants continue arriving at the border.