Illegal Border Crossings fall for FY2020

Apprehensions made by Border Patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border continued to decline in the month of September, marking a drastic decrease over the past year compared to the record-breaking FY 2019.
Even with these new low numbers created by the Administration’s tough stance on asylum fraud and illegal border crossing, last month saw more migrants caught than in any September since 2006.
‘Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan gave the dire warning that as Covid-19 continues to ravage the economies of Central American nations, he expects “unprecedented” numbers, “get ready,” he stated,’ as reported by the Washington Times. He continued,
Make no mistake, we are in a better position right now because of this administration’s policies, he said. These essential tools, like the wall, if we were to remove them we would likely see an influx that overwhelmed even what we saw last year when we saw 150,000 illegal aliens reach our border in a single month.
He said expanding sanctuary cities, allowing undocumented immigrants to hold jobs, and offering them driver’s licenses and health care will incentivize a new wave of unprecedented illegal migration.
The Coronavirus has certainly played a part in the number of apprehensions this year, in the early months of the pandemic the Trump Administration sanctioned a border shutdown and immediate return of illegal crossers under the public health law, leading to just over 17,000 illegal aliens detained by border officers in the month of April 2020.
By September, however, that had bounced back to more than 57,000 apprehensions.
The Washington Times reports,
For the fiscal year as a whole, Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers encountered 458,088 unauthorized migrants. That’s down from 977,509 in fiscal 2019, and it’s also lower than 2018, which saw 521,090 encounters.
The biggest change, though, was in the composition of the unauthorized crossers. At the height of last year’s Central American migrant surge, nearly 70% of those caught at the southwestern border were parents and children. Last month, they were just 14%. But single adults, and particularly Mexican migrants, ticked up over the last year.
Commissioner Morgan stated that CBP is abiding by all of its legal obligations when it comes to asylum claims during the global pandemic, but also said the mass number of fraudulent claims during the 2019 surge meant officers had to be drawn away from other high-priority duties. “He warned that if the stiff policies that helped curtail the 2019 surge disappear, the agency will face that situation again.”