Once again, Customs and Border Protection released new illegal border crossing numbers late on a Friday. According to Customs and Border Protection there were a record-setting 251,487 migrant encounters at the southern border in December.
In the first three months of Fiscal Year 2023, there have been 717,660 encounters.
Remarkably, authorities are claiming they are making progress slowing the flow of migrants, even while they admit encounters continue to rise.
“The December update shows our new border enforcement measures are working. Even as overall encounters rose because of smugglers spreading misinformation around the court-ordered lifting of the Title 42 public health order, we continued to see a sharp decline in the number of Venezuelans unlawfully crossing our southwest border, down 82% from September 2022,” said CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller.
However, it appears that the number of migrants from other countries entering the U.S. across the southern border is not declining.
Another successful three days for Tucson Sector agents on patrol. Here are the statistics covering January 17 to January 19. #HonorFirst pic.twitter.com/X4tfjD8Kml
— John R. Modlin (@USBPChiefTCA) January 20, 2023
CBP Southwest Border Enforcement Numbers for December 2022
- Of the total unique encounters at the Southwest Land Border in December 2022, 77,043 were from Cuba or Nicaragua, which represents 36% of unique encounters.
- Individuals from Mexico and northern Central America accounted for 52,776 unique encounters in December 2022, which represents 24% of unique encounters and a 6% drop from December 2021. By comparison, Mexicans and Northern Central American migrants accounted for 42% of unique encounters in December 2021.The number of unique individuals encountered on the southwest land border in December 2022 was 216,162, an 11 percent increase in the number of unique enforcement encounters from the prior month, driven largely by an increased number of individuals fleeing authoritarian regimes in Cuba and Nicaragua.
CBP Nationwide Total Encounters for FY23TD through December: 863,929
- The number of unique individuals encountered nationwide in December 2022 was 225,797, a 10 percent increase in the number of unique enforcement encounters than the prior month.
- In total, there were 251,487 encounters along the southwest land border in December, a 7 percent increase compared to November. Of those, 14 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.
- Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of all southwest land border encounters were single adults, with 161,808 encounters in December, a 2.3 percent increase compared to November.
- 49,405 encounters, 20 percent of the total, were processed for expulsion under Title 42. 202,082 encounters were processed under Title 8.
- 41,246 encounters involving single adults (25 percent of all single adult encounters) were processed for expulsion under Title 42, with 120,562 processed under Title 8 (75 percent of all single adult encounters).
- 7,932 encounters involving family unit individuals (10 percent of all family unit individuals) were processed for expulsion under Title 42, with, 69,156 processed under Title 8 (90 percent of all family unit individuals).
Unaccompanied Children
- Encounters of unaccompanied children decreased 6.4 percent, with 12,298 encounters in December compared with 13,136 in November. In December, the average number of unaccompanied children in CBP custody was 570 per day, compared with an average of 597 per day in November.
Family Unit individuals
- Encounters of family unit individuals increased by 22 percent from 63,316 in November to 77,088 in December —which is a 12 percent decrease from the peak of 87,461 in August 2021.