Migrant arrests at the southern border rise for the SIXTH month in a row under Biden: Guards caught 188,000 crossing in June - and 2.3 MILLION are projected to arrive by the end of 2021
More than one million migrants have now been apprehended at the southern border since October, new figures show.
Customs and Border Protection revealed that 188,829 migrants were stopped at the southwest border in June, the sixth monthly increase since the start of 2021.
It was also another increase on the 180,641 who were apprehended in May.
These statistics just account for the apprehensions, and doesn't include the migrants who cross undetected.
According to reports that is up to 1,500 people every day.
It is still not immediately clear where exactly these asylum seekers and illegal crossers are being sent after they are transferred out of federal immigration agencies' custody.
There also appears to be no available statistics on how many immigrants who are encountered and taken into custody are sent back to Mexico, or their origin countries, compared to those who are put in an alternatives to detention programs or otherwise released into the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection revealed that 188,829 migrants were stopped at the southwest border in June
More than one million migrants have now been apprehended at the southern border this year fiscal year, new figures show
Figures released Friday show 188,829 migrants were encountered at the southern border in June, even more than Customs and Border Patrol saw in May
The 2021 numbers are way higher than previous years' figures of southwest land border encounters provided by Customs and Border Protection
From January to May, 711,784 migrants were encountered by Customs and Border Protection at the southern border – five times the amount during the same period in 2020
The number of crossers already reported by CBP since the start of 2021 surpasses the population of several large U.S. cities, like Boston and Nashville.
It is also more people than the total people living in the least populated U.S. states of Wyoming and Vermont.
The June numbers mean that almost 1.2 million migrants could have already entered the US since the beginning of the year and more than 2.3 million people could cross into the US by the end of 2021, if the pace of apprehensions and those who avoid detection remain the same.
This is based on CBP monthly figures of encounters at the southern border, reports that 1,500 migrant 'get aways' cross from Mexico without being captured and forecasts based on the trajectory of these statistics staying the same until the end of the year.
CBP reported that 711,784 migrants were apprehended between January and May, five times the amount during the same period in 2020.
The Washington Examiner reported that about 188,000 illegal immigrants crossed the border in June before the numbers were officially released Friday.
But these figures do not include the average of at least 1,500 foreign nationals who escape capture, known as 'got aways,' according to a CNN report.
That means, based on DailyMail.com projections, up to 294,000 migrants could have entered through Mexico since January 1.
This means up to 1,193,784 migrants could have entered via Mexico since the beginning of the year, if combining the projection of apprehended migrants and those who have avoided detection.
If those projections stay on pace, another 294,000 could cross the border without being apprehended, bringing that to a total of 547,000 by the end of the year.
Many were being sent to Laredo, Texas over the last few months – but the Department of Homeland Security agreed this month to temporarily halt sending border crossers to the poor community as it struggles with resources and rising COVID-19 cases.
Customs and Border Protection revealed that 188,829 migrants were stopped at the southwest border in June, the sixth month of increases since the start of 2021
Laredo is designated as medically underserved.
'DHS has agreed to suspend lateral transfers of immigrants from the Valley to avoid overburdening (non-governmental organizations) and local medical facilities in Laredo,' Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose hometown is Laredo, said in a statement Monday.
Other alternatives to detention include parole-like programs, where illegal crossers are released and minors are sent to guardians in the U.S. and are required to either have check-ins at Immigration and Custom Enforcement offices, engage in home visits or be monitored by telephone or GPS ankle bracelets.
The Biden administration experienced a surge in the number of migrants in custody at the beginning of the year and took steps to make sure most were released in 48 hours.
Republicans call this system 'catch and release' and are highly critical of its implementation.
In 2020, former President Donald Trump experienced some of the lowest crossing numbers in modern history - partly fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and his earlier zero-tolerance policies discouraging crossers.
The former president, however, credits these numbers to his border wall, which has since stopped being constructed since Biden took office and issued executive orders ending the project.
In 2019, Trump's highest spike hit in May 2019 when there were 144,116 encounters.
Trump has continuously blasted Biden for halting construction of his border wall immediately after being inaugurated. During a CPAC speech on Sunday in Dallas, Texas, the former president attacked Biden for 'bringing the country to the brink of ruin' with the border crisis.
'The Biden administration was handed the most secure border in history from President Trump, and has since systematically given away our Country's sovereignty to the drug cartels and open borders' radicals,' Trump's spokesperson Liz Harrington told DailyMail.com on Thursday.
'Instead of protecting our border,' she continued, 'Biden is using our Military for a massive resettlement operation of illegal aliens, that flouts our laws and the Constitution, and endangers all Americans.'
'We will lose our Country if this is not stopped,' Harrington asserted.
The former president visited the border last month with Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott where he made remarks in front of an unfinished portion of the wall near McAllen, which has allowed a huge gap where migrants can more easily cross the border from Mexico to the U.S.
Vice President Kamala Harris beat Trump to the border by five days after she finally gave into pressure to survey the crisis for herself.
She was still blasted, however, for now visiting ground zero of the border crisis in the Rio Grande Valley, and instead going several hundred miles away to El Paso, where there are substantially less encounters with migrants.
Biden is looking into ways to address the crisis after two separate polls last month showed only one-third of American adults approve of Biden and Harris handling of the southern border.
One idea is getting more funding for technology at CBP and other border agencies to allow them to more easily surveil the border and stop these illegal crossings from happening in the first place.
The House Appropriations Committee advanced a bill on Tuesday that would allocate $475 million in DHS funding toward ICE and ATD for technologies for surveilling immigrants, which was well above what the Biden administration requested in its 2022 budget proposal.
A number of immigrants advocates have said these programs cause physical and emotional harm in arguing against their use.
More money comes as some progressives, like Representative Rashida Tlaib, have actually called for the defunding of the entire DHS – in particular targeting ICE and CBP.
Republicans, however, claim more needs to be done to address the crisis, including resuming construction of the border wall and implementing more hard-line policies that prevent migration rather than encourage it.
'The exponential rise in illegal crossings at the border speaks to a crisis of leadership in Washington,' North Carolina Representative Madison Cawthorn told DailyMail.com. 'The American people have made it abundantly clear that a secure southern border is of the utmost importance. However, the pleas of our southern states have fallen on deaf ears in the White House.'
'A nation without borders is a nation destined to fall, and every day that the Biden Administration fails to act, is another day that they have failed the American people,' he added.
Cawthorn was one of the several GOP lawmakers who joined Trump during his trip to McAllen last month.