Border crisis: Nearly 200,000 migrants encountered in July

“This marks the second month in a row of decreased encounters along the Southwest border. While the encounter numbers remain high, this is a positive trend and the first two-month drop since October 2021,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement.

Magnus pointed to a digital advertising campaign aimed at convincing people outside the U.S. not to travel to the border as one of the “many actions” the Biden administration has taken to address the border crisis.

Since the start of the government’s fiscal 2022 year last October, U.S. border officials have intercepted 2,242,413 people attempting to enter the country unlawfully, including 1.95 million at the southern border. In 2019, a year that Democrats dubbed a humanitarian crisis at the southern border, 1.14 million people were encountered.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS DETAINED AT BORDER UNDER BIDEN HELD 10X LONGER THAN PERMITTED

Although the 199,976 people who were stopped by authorities is slightly lower than the 207,933 in June and it is down from the 213,593 reported in July 2021, it is high and unprecedented to have remained at this level for 18 months.

For the last century, U.S. border officials have typically encountered fewer than 50,000 people at the southern border per month. During seasonal surges, those numbers could tick up to 150,000, but those being arrested largely were Mexican men — not families, children, and adults from around the world, as has become the trend in the last several years.

Of the 199,976 encounters in July, 90% illegally walked into the country through land between the ports of entry. The other 10% sought admission at the ports of entry, where vehicles are inspected, but lacked proper documentation.

Roughly 134,000 people were adults traveling alone, 52,000 were part of a family, and nearly 14,000 were children who arrived without a parent or guardian.

Just 37% of the 199,976 were expelled at the border under a pandemic public health procedure known as Title 42. The Trump administration implemented the policy in March 2020 to avoid filling Border Patrol holding stations with large numbers of people, given the ease by which the coronavirus spread. Under the Biden administration, the percentage of illegal immigrants expelled at the border rather than taken into custody has plunged for months, dropping from more than 80% at the end of the Trump era to last month’s 37%.

Human smugglers who work for Mexican cartels facilitate illegal immigration across the southern border, as well as smuggling drugs into the country. Smugglers push large groups of people over at once in an effort to divert Border Patrol agents to one area responding to a group, while they run criminals or previously deported people across the border in an unmanned area.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

In a remote part of the Texas border town of Eagle Pass, it is normal for as many as 1,500 people to be apprehended crossing the border in a single day, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said earlier this year. Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas told the Washington Examiner that more than 2,000 people cross into his town daily, based on what agents observe, but not all can be tracked down.

Large groups of 200 to 500 people continued to cross the Rio Grande in July and into August. Fox News reporter Bill Melugin wrote on Twitter that 2,202 people had been apprehended in a 24-hour period in the 245-mile-long section of border that encompasses Eagle Pass, citing a single anonymous government source.