Arrests of illegal migrants on U.S.-Mexico border plummet

Arrests of illegal migrants on U.S.-Mexico border plummet

Washington Post
By Nick Miroff and William Booth, Published: December 3

MEXICALI, Mexico — Arrests of illegal migrants trying to cross the southern U.S. border have plummeted to levels not seen since the early 1970s, according to tallies released by the Department of Homeland Security last week, a historic shift that could reshape the debate over immigration reform.

The Border Patrol apprehended 327,577 illegal crossers along the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2011, which ended Sept. 30, numbers not seen since Richard Nixon was president, and a precipitous drop from the peak in 2000, when 1.6 million unauthorized migrants were caught. More than 90 percent of the migrants apprehended on the southwest border are Mexican.

The number of illegal migrants arrested at the border has been dropping over the past few years but appears to be down by more than 25 percent this year.

Experts say that Border Patrol apprehensions are a useful marker for estimating the total flow of illegal migrants, though imprecise because the U.S. government has no idea how many are not caught. But coupled with census and labor data from both countries that show far fewer Mexicans coming to the United States and many returning home, it appears that the historic flood of Mexican migration north has slowed dramatically.

“We have reached the point where the balance between Mexicans moving to the United States and those returning to Mexico is essentially zero,â€

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a historic shift that could reshape the debate over immigration reform.

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You wish Washington Post. Try to keep your overt bias out of the first paragraph next time would ya? Flagrant support for amnesty in the first of this article coming right from the publication.

W

Invaders no longer walk across the border. Could that be due to A/C and heated tunnels under the border that are equipped with a fast and efficient people mover transit system?

Haven't BP agents reported there's a 'policy' of non-apprehension in place now? They've been instructed to just turn the invaders back across the border there by keeping these statistics as low as they are.

Imagine that word gets out that law enforcement isn't going to check for speeders on a certain stretch of road, naturally more people begin to travel faster than the limit. Yet because no speeding tickets were issued it could be claimed no one has been speeding.