Thread: Damning Report on Illegal-Alien Entries Now Available

By Mark Krikorian, December 1, 2016

In September the media reported that the Obama administration was sitting on a damning Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report that called into question the administration’s claim that as many as 81 percent of people attempting to cross the border illegally are apprehended.

This new report, whose full text the Center for Immigration Studies has now obtained, estimates that nearly half of illegal aliens slip through the southern border undetected.

The report was apparently completed in May, leading some to suspect that the Obama administration did not want it released for fear that it would bolster Donald Trump’s call for a border wall.

According to Fox News, the report was requested by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees as part of the 2016 Omnibus Bill and “has been shrouded in secrecy.” In response, a spokesman for DHS stated that claims about the report not being released for political reasons were “false” and that “the work is still preliminary and requires further refinement, to ensure the new measures are accurate and reliable.”

Among other things, the report measures total level of illegal entry, the probability of apprehension, and the effect of law enforcement in deterring illegal entry. It relies on DHS databases of border apprehension records supplemented by Border Patrol observations, surveillance of illegal entries, and surveys of illegal aliens. The report was completed by the Institute for Defense Analyses, which played no role in the report’s release here.

For 2015, the estimated apprehension rate of illegal aliens between ports of entry on the southern border is only 54 percent. The report finds that although there has been a steep fall in total illegal entries over the past 15 years, there has not been a steep rise in the probability of apprehension over the same time period. Still, there has been some rise; shockingly, the report’s authors find that the estimated apprehension rate between ports of entry in 2005 was only 36 percent.

The report also notes that of illegal aliens crossing at ports of entry — for example, with fake IDs or hidden in vehicles — only 29 percent were estimated to have been apprehended in 2014, and only 39 percent in 2015.

Another interesting number highlighting the Central American influx and perhaps an increased effort on the part of immigration attorneys is the total requests for asylum. In 2009, Obama’s first year in office, there were 17,000 requests for asylum along the southern border; in 2014 there were 170,000 such requests.

The 98-page report can be read in full here.

http://cis.org/krikorian/damning-rep...-now-available

Brittany M. Hughes | 4 hours ago

A new report from the Institute for Defense Analyses estimates that not only does border patrol catch only about half of all the illegal aliens who cross the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully between ports of entry, but more than 60 percent of illegal aliens who come through U.S. ports of entry — official areas literally designed to weed out immigration violators – are successfully admitted.

The report was originally requested by Congress to help determine just how effective the Obama administration’s border security policies are on the influx on illegal alien migrants, particularly given the increasing number of aliens who’ve streamed across the border over the past couple of years. The report was completed in May but was only recently released by the Department of Homeland Security and published Friday by the Center for Immigration Studies following months of demands from Congress that the entire report be released.

The Department has denied claims that it was withholding the damning report for political reasons related to the recent presidential election.

The IDA’s estimation that only 54 percent of all illegal alien border crossers are actually caught directly contradicts the Department of Homeland Security’s earlier claim that our current border security system holds an 81 percent apprehension rate, CIS noted in their analysis.

But perhaps even more shocking is the fact that agents apprehend an even fewer percentage of the illegal aliens who pass through U.S. ports of entry at the southern border.

The IDA’s report notes that unsurprisingly, the vast majority of immigrants who come through U.S. ports of entry are doing so legally. However, of those who came through ports of entry illegally in 2015, only about 39 percent were caught. The year before, IDA reports a paltry 29 percent of illegals were apprehended at our ports of entry.

In 2015 alone, the IDA estimates that about 28,000 illegal aliens were admitted through ports of entry into the United States. And while fewer illegals actually try to get through these supposedly guarded areas, the data shows that those who take the risk actually have a higher success rate than those who try to cross the border in between ports of entry.

“This is a difficult mission at many land [points of entry], because the daily number of travelers who need to be inspected can be in the tens of thousands, and an OFO officer often has a relatively small amount of time to conduct an initial inspection of each person,” the IDA stated in its analysis.

The report did note that while the illegal alien apprehension rate at ports of entry is sadly low, the number of illegals successfully passing through POEs in 2015 was only about 30,000, a 90 percent drop from the 250,000 who came through ports of entry illegally in 2005.

Asylum claims filed by illegal alien border crossers, predominantly unaccompanied minors (or those who claim to be) as well as family units, are up from just 20,000 in 2011 to 170,000 in 2015 – an increase of 750 percent over just five years, the report noted.

The IDA does note that even its best estimates listed in the report aren’t perfect, explaining that while border apprehension rate “is a key strategic measure that DHS should be estimating and tracking on a regular basis,” still, “neither DHS not its predecessor agencies have officially reported on the rate of apprehensions at the border, nor has DHS been able to fully asses the deterrent effects of more effective border enforcement.


http://www.mrctv.org/blog/report-rev...ht-ports-entry

By PAUL BEDARD • 12/7/16 9:49 AM

A damning new report on the Obama administration's immigration policies and actions shows that about half of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are actually caught, and demands for asylum have exploded 900 percent.

The report done for the Department of Homeland Security said that asylum demands since President Obama came into office and loosened immigration requirements surged from 17,000 to 170,000.

What's more, despite claims that up to 81 percent of all illegals are apprehended crossing the border, just 54 percent actually are, according to the report from Institute for Defense Analyses. The report, done for DHS, is titled "Assessing Southern Border Security."

It was obtained and released by the Center for Immigration Studies.

The head of the center, Mark Krikorian, analyzed the report in a blog post. Among his key takeaways:

For 2015, the estimated apprehension rate of illegal aliens between ports of entry on the southern border is only 54 percent. The report finds that although there has been a steep fall in total illegal entries over the past 15 years, there has not been a steep rise in the probability of apprehension over the same time period. Still, there has been some rise; shockingly, the report's authors find that the estimated apprehension rate between ports of entry in 2005 was only 36 percent.

The report also notes that of illegal aliens crossing at ports of entry — for example, with fake IDs or hidden in vehicles — only 29 percent were estimated to have been apprehended in 2014, and only 39 percent in 2015.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ho...rticle/2609047