Border crossings increase despite dangerous heat

PHOENIX — U.S. officials say the number of migrant families they encountered at the border in June increased by 25% from the previous month even as summer temperatures rise in the deserts and mountain terrain of the southwestern borderlands.

According to new data, U.S. Customs and Border Protection tallied 55,805 members of families with children in June, compared with 44,746 in May. While a large increase, the figure is far below the high of 88,587 in May 2019.

Overall, officials say they saw 5% more encounters with migrants trying to cross the border in June compared with May but attributed much of that increase to repeated attempts by people trying to get into the United States.

Pandemicrelated powers that the government uses to rapidly expel most migrants from the country without allowing them to seek asylum has led to a largerthanaverage number of migrants trying to cross multiple times, which means the numbers “somewhat overstate” how many are arriving at the border, Customs and Border Protection said in the report.

The Trump administration issued the public health order in March 2020 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and President Biden has largely kept it in place. The new numbers show slightly more than a third of the 188,829 people encountered at the border in June had unsuccessfully tried to cross at least one other time in the previous 12 months. The CBP last month expelled 104,907 people under the pandemic powers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Protection since October has offered an exception to that order for children traveling alone and announced Friday it would allow the exception to stand following a review, allowing those minors to avoid deportation. The CDC said it determined there is sufficient infrastructure in place to protect the children, caregivers, and local communities in the U.S. from the virus.

The number of single adults encountered at the border fell in June, but they were the largest group of people trying to cross. Encounters with children traveling alone increased by 8% last month, to 15,253, compared with 14,137 in May.

June’s figure is still well below the high of 18,663 unaccompanied children encountered in March by the Border Patrol, which began publishing numbers in 2009.

The number of children in CBP custody fell to 832 on June 30 from 5,767 at its peak on March 29.

Eugene Garcia / Associated Press A migrant family from Brazil waits to be processed by U.S. Border Patrol agents last month after they passed through a gap in the border wall from Mexico into Yuma, Ariz.