U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 24 illegal immigrants in Penitas on March 11, 2021.
Brandon Judd, chairman of the National Border Patrol Council, said the sheer number of illegal border crossers apprehended by the Border Patrol each day has become an enormous threat in itself, and the sheer volume is unprecedented.
Speaking at a roundtable with Republican members of Congress, Texas landowners and law enforcement on Wednesday (April 7), Judd said, “I think this is the largest surge (of illegal border crossers) that we’ve seen in the history of the Border Patrol.”
In March, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 172,000 illegal aliens crossing the border, according to statistics released Thursday (April 8) by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In February, border enforcement officers apprehended 101,000 people.
Troy Miller, acting director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said this increase in the number of illegal immigrants “is not new. Since April 2020, the number of encounters with illegal immigrants by law enforcement officers has been increasing, and our past experience can help us better meet the challenges we face this year.
However, Judd noted, “This surge in illegal immigration is unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
He explained that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Border Patrol apprehended as many as 1.5 million illegal aliens each year.
Judd said, “But even though we arrested 1.5 million people, we actually dealt with 400,000 to 500,000. We were just arresting the same people over and over again.” Most are single men from Mexico who could easily be back across the border again in a matter of hours.
“And today …… if we arrest 1.2 million people, we’re actually dealing with 800,000 to 900,000 different people.”
Judd said that in addition to single adults, the increase in the number of very large numbers of unaccompanied children (18,600 in March) and family units (nearly 53,000 in March) is overwhelming.
Both illegal entry family units and unaccompanied children consume significant resources, including housing, food, transportation and health care. And these resources are needed for processing and subsequently for being transferred or released.
In addition, most family members and unaccompanied children will ultimately remain in the United States, regardless of whether they have an asylum claim worthy of approval.
“You could cross the border illegally on day one and be in Virginia the next day,” Judd said.
“I have personally arrested groups from China, Bangladesh, Russia, Poland and Brazil. These criminal organizations are allowed into these countries and they are allowed to advertise their (human trafficking) services and make billions of dollars off of human suffering. And that’s based on our policies. It’s wrong. It’s inhumane.”
Biden drew criticism for quickly undoing Trump (Trump)-era immigration policies after taking office. These Trump policies have dramatically reduced the flow of illegal immigrants. Eliminating them created the current crisis.
President Biden appointed Vice President Harris to lead the border crisis response. But so far, she hasn’t visited the border. And she says she’s focused on providing more assistance to Central American countries.
Judd said the only way to stop the flow of people is to detain illegal immigrants while their immigration cases are being processed, not to incentivize more illegal immigrants to come by implementing “catch and release” measures.
The Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocol, also known as the “Stay in Mexico” program, was designated for that very purpose, he said.
I would rather have a court at the border right away to detain these people until their asylum claims are decided,” Judd said. If we did that, we would be able to address the problem and we would immediately stop the fraudulent asylum claims.”
And at present, only about 10 percent of Central Americans who apply for asylum are released after their cases are heard. Many do not appear for court hearings or apply for asylum again once they are released into the United States.
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