Border chief acknowledges ‘crisis is not over’
Statistics show ‘unprecedented’ year, but sharp decline recently
EL PASO — Top U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials released statistics for an “unprecedented” year that showed a record surge in family migration peaking in May and a sharp decline in border crossings in recent months.
“Although we’ve achieved an incredible success, there’s more to do; the crisis is not over,” CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said.
Standing at the border fence in El Paso with a row of Border Patrol and CBP officers behind him, Morgan credited the president’s policies and cooperation from Mexico and Central American countries for the sharp drop in border crossings in the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. He also praised Border Patrol and CBP officers who worked tirelessly to handle the overwhelming influx of migrant families at the Mexican border. More than 473,000 parents and children arrived, the highest year on record for family migration.
“These are numbers that no immigration system in the world can handle, not even in this country,” Morgan said.
He said the humanitarian crisis had affected security.
“At the peak, we had more than 40% of our Border Patrol agents pulled off the line. At any given time, we had 731 CBP officers that were pulled out of the ports to deal with the humanitarian crisis. This absolutely made our country less safe,” Morgan said.
He said cartel smugglers and human traffickers took advantage of the influx to move drugs and criminals into the country.
During their remarks, the acting commissioner and his deputy repeatedly blamed Congress for failing to pass legislation to “close loopholes” exploited by smuggling organizations that know children cannot be held in immigration detention for more than 20 days. Morgan said smugglers told migrants, “You grab a kid, and that is your U.S. passport. That will guarantee you entry into the U.S.”
In May alone, family migration peaked at 144,000 crossings. In one day in May, 5,800 people turned themselves in to agents. Most were parents with children from Central America and arrived at the border seeking asylum. In some cases, large groups showed up along remote stretches of border, including Antelope Wells.
The El Paso Sector, which includes all of New Mexico, was the second-busiest, after the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. But El Paso experienced the largest spike in family migration, with 132,909 parents with children, compared with 12,312 the previous year, a 980% increase.
CBP officials chose to release the fiscal year-end statistics for the whole country in El Paso in recognition of the impact on the sector, and the men and women who work for the agency.
“It has been an absolutely unprecedented year for U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” Deputy CBP Commissioner Robert Perez said. “All of us who’ve been in this incredible agency owe a debt of gratitude to the entirety of the 60,000 employees who have persevered through challenges unlike anything I have seen in the over 26 years of my career,” he said.
He also recognized El Paso’s role in handling the humanitarian crisis. Local nonprofits, churches and city governments in the region, including Las Cruces and Deming, stepped in to provide temporary shelter and help for migrant families on their way to sponsors and relatives across the country to await a decision from an immigration court on their asylum cases.
“We can’t thank this community enough for what it has done to work alongside us, even when we might not agree on every bit of the solutions that need be put forth. You all stood — and continue to stand — with us,” Perez said.
He thanked Mexico and Central American partners for helping reduce the migration flow, which dropped last month to its lowest point this year, with 52,546 apprehensions on the Mexican border in September. Mexico deployed 25,000 national guard troops in cities including Ciudad Juárez, just across from El Paso, to block migrants from reaching the U.S.
CBP officials credited President Donald Trump’s border policies for deterring more migration, including the Migrant Protection Protocol, which requires that asylum-seekers wait south of the border for decisions on their asylum cases by a U.S. immigration court.
Perez acknowledged a new pilot program in El Paso, which started this month, to expedite asylum claim reviews during the short period people are in Border Patrol custody. That speeds up deportations. The Prompt Asylum Claim Review program has drawn criticism from immigrant lawyers and advocates for being “secretive” and limiting asylumseekers’ access to legal help with their credible-fear interviews to random phone calls.
“It is incredibly troubling for us to see this process expedited in such a way that it is practically and logistically impossible to find an attorney,” said Linda Rivas, director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.
But Morgan touted the tough policies as a way to send a message to those considering crossing the border.
“The message that is going out now, for the first time in a long time, is, ‘If you grab a kid, it’s not an automatic passport in the U.S.’ We are shutting those loopholes down,” he said.