The final tally of illegal aliens apprehended at and between ports of entry for fiscal 2019 is less than expected but still shows that the U.S. border with Mexico is wide open and too easy to cross.
And though the number for September dropped substantially from the atmospheric figures this summer, it was still higher than any monthly figure for fiscal 2018 and higher than all but three months of 2017.
Customs and Border Protection apprehended a little fewer than one million illegals this fiscal year, and just more than 50,000 in September. The year’s total exceeds the population of all but the 10 largest cities in the United States.
September and the FY 19 Total
Illegals caught reached 52,546 for September, the final month of fiscal 2019. Border cops caught 40,507 crossing the border illegally, while 12,039 showed up hat-in-hand at ports of entry.
Total apprehensions for the year were 977,509, with 851,508 caught jumping the border and 126,001 stopped at ports of entry.
Those two figures break down thusly:
• Single Adults 301,806
• Families 473,682
• Unaccompanied minors 76,020
• Single Adults 67,006
• Families 53,430
• Unaccompanied minors 4,614
• Accompanied minors 951
Of all those apprehended then, 527,112, or 53.9 percent, claimed to be in “families.”
That number is significant because illegals know that landing in the United States as part of a “family unit” almost certainly means immediate release, which enables them to disappear and move into the heartland. Deportation becomes impossible. Thus do illegals “rent” children to cross the border or otherwise try to cross as “families” with phony birth certificates and other ID.
Daily Numbers
The number from September is welcome news in one sense: It’s a dramatic decrease from the high of 144,116 in May, some 63.5 percent. That sharp decline began in June, when CBP caught 104,311 crossers.
Until then, it appeared as if CBP would apprehend well more than one million illegals, given the rate at which they were entering.
The year began with a 60,781 apprehensions in October, and quickly worsened with 62,469 in November, then let up with 60,794 in December.
After a slight reprieve of 58,317 in January, a tsunami hit the border.
March through June, CPB caught an average of 3,783 illegals every day. For the year, CBP collared about 2,678 illegals seven days a week.
The Last Six Years
Though September 2019’s number is the lowest this year, it easily surpasses the monthly numbers in other given years.
It surpassed every month in fiscal 2018 and all but three months the year before.
It exceeded every month’s total but one in fiscal 2016, every month in 2015, and all but four in 2014.
This year’s total, 977,509, is vastly larger than any since fiscal 2014, when 569,237 crossed.
The massive influx this year more than doubled the figures for 2015 and 2017, and exceeds the sum of those years by 117,133.
Practical Concerns
Those numbers are a major logistics problem for CBP.
Border agents spend an inordinate amount of time caring for sick and diseased illegals, and have been forced to build temporary shelters that quickly came under fire from anti-American leftists who want to overwhelm the country demographically with new Democrat voters.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the economic illiterate who represents New York’s 14th district, falsely said that CBP forced illegals to drink from toilets, for instance, but in any event the nursing and babysitting duties pulled border agents away from their main job: protecting the porous border.
Border agents spent as much as 40-60 percent of their time handling the vagrants.
As well, the many large groups of illegals provided cover for drug smugglers to send their deadly wares across the border.
All that said, one measure of just how many illegals CBP caught in 2019 is this: The total, 977,509, exceeds the population of Austin, Texas, and would make those illegals as a group the 11th largest city in the country.
Photo: nito100 / iStock / Getty Images Plus
