Border Crisis Continues As Migrant Flow “Isn’t Slowing Down Anytime Soon”

March 15, 2022 ADI Staff Reporter
migrants
Migrants from more than 30 countries entered the U.S. over one weekend in January alone in the Yuma Sector. [Photo courtesy CBP]

On Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection released operational statistics for February 2022, showing a staggering 164,973 illegal immigrants were encountered at the southern border last month. It is the highest total for February in the history of the Department of Homeland Security.

Since President Joe Biden took office, the U.S. has seen the worst border crisis in history. February saw a 63% increase in encounters when compared to last February, and a 280% when compared to the February average under President Trump.

The continuing crisis is destabilizing for both the U.S. and Mexico.

  • The number of unique individuals encountered nationwide in February 2022 was 116,678, a 2 percent increase in the number of unique individuals encountered the prior month.
  • In total, there were 164,973 encounters along the Southwest land border in February, a 7 percent increase compared to January. Of those, 30 percent involved individuals who had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months, compared to an average one-year re-encounter rate of 14 percent for FY2014-2019.
  • More than three-fourths (76 percent) of encounters were single adults, with 126,151 encounters in February, an 11 percent increase compared to January.
  • 91,513 encounters, 55 percent of the total, were processed for expulsion under Title 42. 73,460 encounters were processed under Title 8.
    • 83,553 encounters involving single adults (66 percent of all single adult encounters) were processed for expulsion under Title 42, with 42,598 processed under Title 8.
    • 7,773 encounters involving family unit individuals (29 percent of all family unit individuals) were processed for expulsion under Title 42, with 18,809 processed under Title 8.

Unaccompanied Children

  • Encounters of unaccompanied children increased 37 percent, with 12,011 encounters in February compared with 8,760 in January. In February, the average number of unaccompanied children in CBP custody was 520 per day, compared with an average of 295 per day in January.

Family Unit individuals

  • Encounters of family unit individuals decreased by 17 percent from 31,998 in January to 26,582 in February—which is a 69 percent decrease from the peak of 86,631 in August 2021.

About ADI Staff Reporter 12277 Articles
Under the leadership of Editor-in -Chief Huey Freeman, our team of staff reporters bring accurate,timely, and complete news coverage.