U.S. Customs and Border Protection released new data this week showing that the surge of unaccompanied alien children is getting worse.
In the first three months of fiscal year 2016 (October through December), the number of immigrant children apprehended at the southwest U.S. border is up 117 percent compared to the same period in fiscal year 2015.
That 117 percent increase is higher than the 106 percent increase seen in the first two months of the current fiscal year.
Most of the unaccompanied alien children, or UACs, are pouring in through the Rio Grande sector of the border. In the first three months, 10,558 children were apprehended, up 115 percent from the same period in the prior year, when 4,920 had been apprehended.
(Courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
Apprehensions are up more than 100 percent in six of the nine sectors of the border so far this year.
At that pace, the number of UACs is well on its way to matching the pace seen in 2014, when most saw the situation as a humanitarian crisis. That crisis prompted the Obama administration to reach out to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an effort get those countries to take their own steps to discourage illegal immigration to the United States.
The apprehension of family units at the border is also rising. In the first two months of the year, family apprehensions were up 173 percent.
But from October through December, those apprehensions are up 187 percent.
(Courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
Republicans have said President Obama’s effort to allow illegal immigrants to stay and work in the U.S. continue to attract illegal immigrants.
But Obama is also under fire from Democrats who object to his recent attempt to deport 121 illegal immigrants. On Tuesday, House Democrats met with a top White House official over these raids, and said they were preparing a letter urging him to stop the effort.
