Border crisis rages on: All-time high number of migrant children stopped at the borde

Border crisis rages on: All-time high number of migrant children stopped at the border last month

Phil Shiver
August 03, 2021

While mainstream media coverage of the Biden administration's ongoing border crisis has dropped off significantly in the past few weeks, the crisis itself still rages on.

What are the details?

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that "the number of children traveling alone who were picked up at the Mexican border by U.S. immigration authorities likely hit an all-time high in July, and the number of people who came in families likely reached its second-highest total on record."

The news agency cited David Shahoulian, assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security, in its report.

Shahoulian reportedly told the AP that in July, Border Patrol agents are presumed to have picked up more than 19,000 unaccompanied migrant children, eclipsing the previous all-time high of 18,877 in March.

As for those traveling in family groups, Border Patrol agents encountered about 80,000 in July, or roughly 9,000 short of the all-time high set in May 2019. The figure, however, is up from the 55,805 that were encountered last month.

In all, U.S. immigration authorities reportedly encountered migrants about 210,000 times in the month of July, up from 188,829 in June and the highest number reported in more than two decades.

Border crisis is not improving

The new figures serve as a stark reminder that the situation at the border is not improving, even as news coverage surrounding it has died down some.

Last week, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar (Texas), who represents a district along the border, sounded the alarm that the border crisis has continued to surge and is showing no signs of stopping.

"I've seen the 2014 surge, I've seen the 2019 surge, and now the '21. Usually, you have high peaks from March, April, May, and June. But now we're in July and going into August and we're not seeing this stop," Cuellar said in an interview with Fox News.

The total number of apprehensions for the fiscal year surpassed 1.1 million in June, and now the monthly rate is escalating.

Anything else?

The news is especially concerning given the fact that catch-and-release under the Biden administration appears to be alive and well. Reports surfaced last week that more than 50,000 illegal immigrants have been released into the U.S. without a court date since the start of Joe Biden's presidency.

In the Rio Grande Valley, considered to be the epicenter of the migrant surge, thousands of illegal immigrants were being scheduled for "mass releases" into the U.S. over the weekend. Overwhelmed Border Patrol agents were reportedly releasing scores of migrants, handing them bus tickets to wherever in the country they'd like to go.

Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris, charged with managing the crisis, argued recently in a five-pillar plan that giving money to Central American countries is the U.S.'s best path forward to discourage migration.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/record...ssings-in-july