Assaults against U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are up significantly in the first three months of fiscal year 2017 compared to the same period last year.
Attacks on the organization’s Air and Marine Operations (AMO), Office of Field Operations (OFO) and U.S. Border Patrol totaled 215 in the first three months of the new fiscal year (October through December). In the same period a year earlier, 97 assaults were reported, CBP statistics.
A little more than 200 of this year’s assaults were against the Border Patrol. Three were committed against AMO and 11 were against OFO officers.
Assaults in the current fiscal year are on track to outpace the last five years. FY 2016 finished higher than any recent year with 585 reported incidents. If the current trend continues, this year could conclude at more than 800 assaults.
President Trump took executive action on immigration in late January, ordering the completion of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, from which most of the country’s illegal immigrants have entered. Trump also called for the Homeland Security Department to enforce all immigration laws, including treating all illegal aliens as a priority for deportation, not just criminal aliens.
DHS has not offered an explanation for the rising in assaults. However, border officials said last year that the presidential election was driving more illegal immigration, and that volume could have played a role in the rising number of assaults.
Last year, border officials told the Washington Examiner that many illegal immigrants were seeking to enter the U.S. in the hope that Hillary Clinton would win and grant them asylum. But others were hoping to reach the U.S. in order to secure entry before President Trump took office, over fears that Trump would quickly close the border.
