‘Security and humanitarian crisis’ is building, Border Patrol warns
The number of apprehensions of migrants along the nation’s southern border is at the highest point in more than a decade, creating what the top U.S. Customs and Border Protection official described Tuesday as a mushrooming crisis that threatens to overwhelm federal authorities.
Over the past five months, four times as many people crossed into the USA with family members compared with the same period a year ago. Most are Central Americans crossing over together, trying to request asylum.
“We are currently facing both a border security and humanitarian crisis along our southwest border,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told reporters.
From October to February, Border Patrol agents apprehended about 268,000 migrants who illegally entered the U.S.
between ports of entry. Families, along with unaccompanied children, accounted for 60 percent of all apprehensions since Oct. 1.
In the El Paso sector, which stretches from the westernmost border counties of Texas through all of New Mexico, apprehensions were up 434 percent from the year before.
People entering as part of family units are outpacing the number of those entering by themselves or in groups on non-relatives, said Brian Hastings, chief of Border Patrol operations, who joined McAleenan at the briefing.
The Border Patrol, Hastings said, “has no reason to expect this trend to decrease. In fact, it will increase.”
The briefing came as the U.S. Senate nears a vote on a House-passed resolution to overturn President Donald Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency on the southern border so that he may divert federal funds toward building physical barriers that he says would help stem illegal immigration.
More apprehensions are taking place in the remote and rugged deserts of New Mexico and Arizona, far away from medical facilities and transportation systems, Hastings said. And more migrants are coming as part of large groups.
The influx is being driven mostly by Central American families crossing the border together, the Border Patrol says.
So far during the fiscal year that started in October, authorities have apprehended 70 groups of 100 or more people. The year before, there were 13 such groups. And the year before that there were two, Hastings said.
If the present trend holds, he said, 174 groups of 100 or more, totaling about 29,000 people, will be taken into custody by federal authorities by the end of this fiscal year.
Unlike earlier in the 2000s and before, most undocumented migrants are not from Mexico. About 70 percent, Hastings said, are from what he called the Northern Triangle of Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Apprehensions are on pace to be the largest since 2005, Hastings said. According to Border Patrol statistics, apprehensions on the southern border reached nearly 1.18 million that year.
The appearance of large groups of migrants also has provided cover for drug traffickers because so many agents are needed to process group members, screen them for medical conditions and transport them to detention facilities, Hastings said.
“That’s highly concerning for us going forward,” he said.
Meanwhile, with authorities taking in an average of 55 people a day who need immediate medical attention, Customs and Border Protection plans to expand medical support in what Hastings and McAleenan described as “high-risk locations at and between ports of entry.” That will include facilities for medical assessments that will be staffed by registered nurses and nurse practitioners.
The agency’s efforts to care for migrants has been under scrutiny ever since three migrants died in custody in three months, including two children from Guatemala. The deaths prompted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to order medical screenings for all children in custody, but questions have continued about the agency’s willingness, or ability, to adequately care for migrants.
The spike in apprehensions is straining Border Patrol staff, Hastings said: “The current situation is unsustainable.”