Arrests along Mexican border surged again in May amid ‘broken’ system
WASHINGTON — The Central American migration boom that has swamped U.S. authorities grew even larger in May, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics released Wednesday that show more than 144,000 migrants were taken into custody, a 32% jump from April.
It was by far the largest one-month arrest total since President Donald Trump took office, and it was the highest monthly figure in 13 years, CBP officials said Wednesday.
May was the third month in a row that border detentions topped 100,000, led by recordbreaking levels of illegal crossings by Guatemalan and Honduran parents bringing children.
CBP officials told reporters that agents and officers detained more than 100,000 family members and children, leaving holding cells “bursting at the seams.”
Of the 144,278 taken into CBP custody, 132,887 were apprehended after crossing illegally by Border Patrol agents, and 11,391 were deemed “inadmissible” after arriving at U.S. ports of entry.
“We are in a full-blown emergency, and I cannot say this stronger: The system is broken,” said acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders.
Commissioner Sanders said his agency has detained more than 680,000 border crossers in the past eight months, noting that the total is “more than the population of Miami.”
Most parents who arrive with children are quickly processed and released into the U.S. with a court appointment, a practice homeland security officials characterize as a loophole that the migrants are exploiting to gain easy entry to the country. Trump administration officials want lawmakers to give them the authority to detain parents and children long enough to process their immigration cases, rather than continuing the releases they say have become the biggest “pull factor” for unauthorized migration.
The historic surge has become a source of incessant frustration for Mr. Trump, whose administration has tried to deter the migrants with everharsher enforcement tactics.
Having already fired most of the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Trump last week returned to another frequent target for blame, the government of Mexico, threatening to add tariffs on imported goods.