The number of illegal immigrants entering the United States with their children reached record levels in the three months since President Donald Trump ended a controversial family separation policy, The Washington Post reported.
According to the Post, which cited Department of Homeland Security statistics, Border Patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, the highest one-month total on record — and an 80 percent increase from July.
The latest DHS data also shows 107,212 members of “family units” were taken into custody during the 2018 fiscal year, outpacing the previous high of 77,857 set in 2016, the Post reported.
The data also reveals that agents made 396,579 arrests along the Mexico border during the government’s 2018 fiscal year, a 30 percent increase over the same period in 2017, when illegal migration dropped to a 56-year low, the Post reported.
The most recent surge has included groups of 100 or more Central American parents and children crossing the Rio Grande and the deserts of Arizona to turn themselves in, the Post reported. The families, citing a fear of return to their native countries, are typically assigned a court date and released from custody.
“We’re getting hammered daily,” one unnamed Border Patrol agent in South Texas told the Post.
The surge has continued this month, the Post reported.
“If October is any indication of what’s to come, Fiscal Year 2019 is going to be a very busy year,” Manuel Padilla, Jr., chief of the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector in South Texas, tweeted.
Agents in the sector, the busiest for illegal crossings, arrested more than 1,900 people last weekend alone, he added.
The crisis — and a new caravan of Central American migrants heading north as the midterm elections approach — has infuriated Trump, and sparked him to push for a reinstatement of some form of the family-separation policy, the Post reported, citing unnamed White House aides.
According to the Post, one unnamed senior official admits the controversial separation was stopped to quell a political furor — but wound up as a “clear signal” that people could cross.
“Now we’re actually getting crushed,” that source told the Post.
Trump has lashed out at a new caravan of 2,000 migrants, mostly from Honduras, who crossed into Guatemala on Monday, pushing past police roadblocks, tweeting the blame rests with Democrats “who won’t approve legislation that will allow laws for the protection of our country.”
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