by Kaylee Greenlee
Monthly border encounters with migrants attempting to illegally enter the U.S. decreased slightly in August for the first time since President Joe Biden took office but remain near record highs, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
Border officials encountered nearly 209,000 migrants at the southern border in August, down from a record high of 213,500 people in July, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Officials encountered a record-high number of migrants compared to 50,000 in August 2020 and 62,700 in August 2019.
However, a “larger-than-usual number of migrants” are attempting to illegally cross the border several times so “total encounters somewhat overstate the number of unique individuals arriving at the border,” CBP announced. Officials encountered 156,600 unique individuals in August and 25% of them had at least one prior encounter in the last 12 months.
“The Biden administration’s open-borders policies have encouraged, incentivized, and facilitated mass illegal immigration, and the consequences have been predictable: more than 100,000 apprehensions per month in every full month President Biden has been in office,” Heritage Foundation Senior Research Official and former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official Lora Ries said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The numbers from August show that trend is nowhere close to changing. It’s time for Congress to do its job and actually do something to hold this administration accountable for its dereliction of duty,” Ries added.
The men and women of @CBP continue to step up to meet the demands of our mission. Learn more about their accomplishments in August, as they fulfilled CBP's critical roles of supporting our economy and ensuring national security at our ports of entry and along our borders. https://t.co/9SrK8HwGQO
— CBP Troy Miller (@CBPTroyMiller) September 15, 2021
Border officials encountered mostly single adult migrants in August, along with 18,800 unaccompanied minors, according to CBP. Nearly 86,500 family units were encountered in August, up from 83,500 in July and 55,900 in June.
“The men and women at CBP continue to step up to meet the demands of high numbers of encounters at our southern border. CBP recorded 2 percent fewer encounters in August than July,” the agency said in a statement. “The vast majority of single adults encountered in August, along with a substantial share of families, continued to be expelled under the CDC’s Title 42 authority.”
Around 93,400 migrants encountered in August were expelled under Title 42, a Trump-era public health order implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to CBP. The federal government started flying illegal migrants to the interior of Mexico in an effort to stop the spread of the delta variant in the U.S.
Illegal migrants who couldn’t be deported under Title 42 were placed in expedited removal proceedings, according to CBP. Around 72,000 migrants have been subjected to the proceedings since Oct. 2020.
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Kaylee Greenlee is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
