The U.S. is still seeing about 1,000 people cross the southwestern U.S. border illegally each day, according to the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“We’re still seeing about 1,000 a day crossing our border illegally between ports of entry, and another two to three hundred arriving without documents at ports of entry,” Kevin McAleenan said on Fox News.
[Also read: Smugglers flood border with migrants to divert security forces from drug interdiction]
.@CBP_McAleenan: “We’re still seeing about a thousand a day crossing our border illegally.” pic.twitter.com/Lq6YV6wn8P
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 24, 2018
“So the numbers are still significant,” he said.
McAleenan said officials are prosecuting most single adults who enter, and said the Trump administration is prosecuting four times as many of these adults as the Obama administration was.
“We’re doing about 55 percent of all single adults, are being prosecuted right now,” he said.
But he said families are more difficult to process, and said officials still need a way to hold families while the adults are prosecuted for illegal entry.
“A much better system would allow us to keep families together,” he said.
The Trump administration has proposed detaining families together while the adults are prosecuted, but many fear that could be challenged in court as a violation of a prior decision that says children can only be detained for a short period of time.
