The number of unlawful migrant encounters at the southwestern border has exceeded 2 million in one year for the first time, according to new figures released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Monday.
More than 2.1 million unlawful migrants have been encountered at the border in the first 11 months of the 2022 fiscal year, which ends on September 30. It is worth noting that over the last 11 months, there has also been a record number of unlawful migrants removed, with more than 1.3 million removals, more than any prior year.
The number of encounters at the border increased slightly from July to August, with August’s 203,598 encounters along the southern border representing a 1.7% increase over July’s 199,976 figure but still coming in lower than the 209,840 encounters recorded last August.
Of this year’s August total, 157,921 were unique encounters, while the remainder involved repeated encounters with unlawful migrants who had already been previously expelled or deported, the CBP said.
The record-high number of encounters along the border has been driven in part by a spike in migration from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
“Failing Communist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba are driving a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent increase in encounters at the southwest U.S. border,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement.
In August, the number of unlawful migrants encountered at the border from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela was nearly the same as that from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
That represents a stark change in the nationality of unlawful migrants attempting to cross the border since last year.
The number of encounters at the border with individuals from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras has been dropping for three consecutive months and is down 43% from August 2021. Meanwhile, the number of Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans encountered at the border has increased significantly since August 2021 by 175%.
The U.S. lacks diplomatic relations with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, so officials cannot charter repatriation flights to remove the unlawful migrants back to those countries as they could with people from other countries.
Magnus said the Biden administration is working with leaders in Central and South America to address the “root causes of migration, facilitate repatriation, and take thousands of smugglers off the streets.”
Immigration issues have made many headlines recently, despite the Biden administration attempting to steer clear of the matter as the midterm elections approach.
Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis paid for dozens of migrants who were processed and released from government custody to await court hearings to be transported to Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., respectively.
In April, Abbott instituted a program to bus processed migrants who volunteered to Washington D.C. He has since expanded the program to include taxpayer-funded transport to New York City and Chicago.
Gov. Abbott has said the program is an effort to show Democratic-controlled areas inside the country what citizens living near the border face.
“Maybe, just maybe, now that this crisis has caught the attention of the mayors of Washington, DC, New York, and Chicago, maybe the Administration will pay attention to those mayors when they’ve ignored this problem so far,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a statement in response to the CBP figures.