The number of illegal aliens apprehended at the U.S. border with Mexico increased only slightly in February, and only because the number of single adults and unaccompanied minors increased.
Had those numbers stayed the same or declined, the total would have declined for the ninth consecutive month since June. The fiscal year began on October 1.
Border agents collared more than 37,000 illegals who either jumped the border or showed up at ports of entry, data from Customs and Border Patrol show. That figure brings the year’s total to more than 200,000.
High as the number still is, it is nearly 40-percent less than the number of illegals who had crossed by this time last year.
February Numbers
Though still way too high, CPB’s number for February did not substantially increase from January: 37,119 illegals were apprehended; 30,068 were collared between ports of entry, while 7,051 were declared inadmissible at ports of entry.
• Unaccompanied Children — 3,076
• Family Units — 4,610
• Single Adults — 22,382
The number of unaccompanied minors in this category increased 14.7 percent from January’s 2,682, while the number of single adults increased 4.8 percent from 21,361.
The total caught between ports of entry increased three percent from 29,206.
The totals for inadmissibles were:
• Unaccompanied Alien Children — 849
• Family Units — 2,497
• Single Adults — 3,663
• Accompanied Minor Child — 42
Inadmissibles dropped 5.4 percent from 7,454.
Numbers for Fiscal 2020
Though February’s numbers did not continue the steady if not sharp monthly decline that began in June, they still show that what had become a major deluge has slowed.
February’s 37,119 is far less — 19.6 percent — than the figure that opened the fiscal year in October, 46,184.
And it’s 74.2 percent less than May’s 144,116, the high point of the illegal-alien tsunami that hit the border.
The figure is 36.3 percent less than the 58,317 who crossed and were caught last February.
Total apprehensions for the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2020 are 203,228, which is 36.6 percent less than the 318,906 who had crossed and were caught by this time last year.
This year’s total means border agents are catching 1,337 illegals every day, or about 55 every hour.
But again, those figures pale in comparison to last year’s: 2,112 every day, or 88 per hour.
Border agents caught 282,948 illegals and inadmissibles nationally, the agency reported.
That figure is down 75 percent from the nationwide total of 1,148,024, which means almost all the decline is attributable to the slowdown at the nation’s southwest frontier with Mexico.
Almost all the illegals the Border Patrol apprehends are Central Americans who traversed Mexico to get to the border.
El Centro
On Friday, the border sector in El Centro, California, reported that apprehensions there were down 36 percent, attributing the improved numbers to recently completed sections of border wall.
Unaccompanied children have dropped 54 percent and family units 85 percent relative to last year “due to the new border wall project and policies the administration has implemented,” the agency reported.
Border agents in El Centro, about 63 miles west of Yuma, Arizona, have bagged 29 sex fiends and six gang members this year.
Though the border wall and President Trump’s tougher policies have helped push the numbers down, Mexico is helping stop the flow as well.
Last year, after President Trump threatened trade sanctions if Mexico didn’t stop the poverty-stricken masses of the Northern Triangle from using Mexico as a highway to the United States, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered his nation’s security forces to stop migrants at the border with Guatemala.
Photo: AP Images
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
