SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — More than 1 million migrants will have been apprehended crossing the U.S. border illegally by Wednesday, just days before the six-month mark of the government’s fiscal year, the head of the Border Patrol said Tuesday.
“It is a strong likelihood that we would have apprehended over 1 million individuals,” Chief Raul Ortiz told reporters in a briefing in San Antonio.
Agents on the northern, southern, and coastal borders have intercepted 993,000 people attempting to enter the United States unlawfully between the start of the fiscal year in October 2020 and Tuesday, Ortiz said. The U.S. is on pace to hit 2 million in 2022 and could go well beyond that, as the Biden administration is weighing ending pandemic policies that require most noncitizens to be immediately turned away.
Over the past 24 hours, more than 9,000 people have been encountered. The figure is astronomical compared to the 1,000 figure that Obama Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson once said would constitute a crisis.
TINY TEXAS TOWN OF CARRIZO SPRINGS BEARS BRUNT OF MIGRANT RELEASES AT BORDER
The influx of migrants, rising from the 5,000 to 7,000 seen in an average day over the past 12 months, comes as the Biden administration mulls over ending a pandemic policy implemented by the Trump administration that allowed Border Patrol agents to turn most migrants back to Mexico immediately. Losing the ability to turn away those who are encountered is expected to lead to more illegal immigration attempts, further adding to agents’ workload.
The policy in question, Title 42, is technically a public health order promulgated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three senior Customs and Border Protection officials and a Border Patrol union leader told the Washington Examiner that the expectation at the agency is that the CDC will choose not to renew Title 42 when it expires on April 20 and that CBP is preparing to announce plans for handling the change before then.
A major consideration for the Biden administration is that ending the order could prompt a “mass migration event,” Axios reported in March. Ortiz said migrant encampments just across the border in Mexico have been growing in recent days as more migrants come across, though he would not blame the possibility of Title 42 ending for the sudden increase in crossings.
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The number of illegal immigrant encounters is expected to surpass 200,000 in March, marking the first month it has done so since last July, National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told the Washington Examiner last week.
