Latest Border Numbers Show Worsening Crisis
Fund the president's spending request, now
By Andrew R. Arthur on May 13, 2019
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) last week released its latest numbers of U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions between the ports of entry and aliens deemed inadmissible at the ports of entry. Those numbers reveal a worsening crisis that involves not only family units (FMUs) and unaccompanied alien children (UAC), but also single adult males. Those statistics underscore the need for Congress to accede to the president's request for supplemental funding, which I detailed in a May 3, 2019 post.
Specifically, total Border Patrol apprehensions in April 2019 were 98,977, an almost seven-percent increase over the month before. The individual numbers are worse, because the number of FMUs increased to 58,474 in April, an almost 10-percent increase over the month before. Plainly, FMUs and the smugglers who are assisting them have identified the loopholes that they can exploit to enter the United States illegally and gain release, and in particular the Flores settlement agreement and the lack of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detention space for FMUs.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Latest-Border-Numbers-Show-Worsening-Crisis
