EL PASO, Texas — On Thursday U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that in March officials encountered the highest number of people at the U.S.-Mexico in 20 years.
More than 172,000 people were encountered at the border and the U.S. saw nearly 19,000 children cross the southwest border, data indicates. Still, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows, the majority of migrants are being turned away.
With that in mind, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday visited the Texas border cities El Paso and McAllen.
During his stops, Mayorkas met with Homeland Security employees, local leaders and immigrant advocates.
Among those leaders was Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso.
During a news conference, which is available on Escobar’s Facebook page, the congresswoman said the meeting with Mayorkas was brief, candid, important, and the first part of a larger conversation.
A great deal of the meeting, Escobar said, was focused on coronavirus pandemic recovery efforts. El Paso was among the hardest-hit regions in Texas.
Escobar said it was important that Mayorkas meet with people whose voices have been left out of the conversation about the influx of migrants making their way across the border: advocates and practitioners.
A migrant advocate who had the opportunity to meet with Mayorkas Thursday said she told him the treatment of unaccompanied migrant children has improved a great deal since the last administration but that much work remains.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday called for a migrant facility in San Antonio to be closed amid allegations that some children being housed there have been sexually abused.
A complex mix of factors in the United States and Central America drove the increase. It has coincided with the Biden administration’s decision to exempt unaccompanied children from pandemic-related powers to immediately expel most people from the country without giving them an opportunity to seek asylum. Children are instead released to “sponsors” in the U.S., usually parents or close relatives, while being allowed to pursue their cases in heavily backlogged immigration courts.
Overall, the Border Patrol had 168,195 encounters with migrants on the southern border in March, its busiest month since March 2001, when it counted 170,580 arrests. The numbers aren’t entirely comparable because more than half of last month’s encounters resulted in expulsions under pandemic-related authority instituted by former President Donald Trump and kept in place by Biden.
People expelled under the public health law are far more likely to try again because they face no legal consequences.
Unlike expulsions, people arrested under immigration laws can face jail time, felony prosecution for repeat offenses and bans on entering the country legally through marriage or other means. Biden administration officials said 28% of expulsions in March were people who had been expelled before, compared with a 7% pre-pandemic recidivism rate for the 12-month period that ended in September 2019.
CBP had 52,904 encounters with people arriving as families, with only about one of three being expelled and the rest allowed to stay in the U.S. to pursue asylum.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.