Molly Hennessy-FiskeContact Reporter

The number of children and family members caught crossing the southern border fell again slightly last month, according to new government figures, but is expected to increase seasonally this summer ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

A total of 3,048 people were apprehended at the southern border traveling in families in February, down from 3,145 in January, when when the total fell for the first time in months, by 65%.

Also last month, 3,113 unaccompanied child migrants were apprehended at the border, just two more than in January, when the number dropped 54% from December.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday touted the new numbers, noting that 10% more migrants were caught on the border in February than in the month before -- 26,078. The number was boosted by increased apprehensions of adults, about three-quarters of them from Mexico.

This winter, immigration officials staged a series of raids and implied that stepped-up enforcement had tamped down migration.They have detained more than 300 recently arrived migrants, Johnson noted, many of them Central American youths and families.

Since the federal fiscal year began in October, officials have deported 28,808 Central Americans and 128,000 Mexicans, Johnson said, adding that the U.S. government does “offer vulnerable populations in Central America an alternate, safe and legal path to a better life” but that those targeted for deportation had exhausted those remedies, which some advocates dispute.

“If someone was apprehended at the border, has been ordered removed by an immigration court, has no pending appeal, and does not qualify for asylum or other relief from removal under our laws, he or she must be sent home,” Johnson said.

Many of the migrant youths and families who arrived in McAllen recently said they were escaping escalating violence in Central America. Some who recently sought help at Sacred Heart Catholic Church were also keeping track of the presidential candidates, whom they know by name.

“They’re worried about Donald Trump and what would happen if he were president,” said Megan Holmes, 40, a Seattle social worker who came to volunteer at a center set up for the migrant families in the church hall two years ago.

Among migrants Holmes talked to this week was Rogelio Ortiz Dodon, 48, a burly Honduran truck driver who arrived with his 15-year-old daughter, Nisey, after fleeing San Pedro Sula, one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

The immediate reason they left Feb. 20 was because his brother, a car painter, was threatened by drug traffickers. Ortiz took the threats seriously. Three years ago, he said, his sister-in-law was threatened and ended up dead, chopped up with a machete, leaving her 13-year-old son in his care.

But he also fears Trump. He saw news reports in Honduras about Trump’s proposal to build a border wall.

“He can change the law against us. He’s radical,” Ortiz said.

Hillary Clinton has said unaccompanied young migrants should be repatriated to discourage further migration, but both she and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, have opposed the detention of families and deportation raids on immigrant families.

Ortiz and his daughter were waiting at the McAllen Greyhound station for their bus to join relatives in Durham, N.C. He wore a gray button-down shirt, baggy jeans and, underneath, an ankle monitor -- a condition of his release from custody.

This was his third time crossing illegally into the U.S. He first came in 2005 and worked in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, returning home in 2009. Then violence in San Pedro Sula escalated, and he decided he had to leave.
A year and a half ago, he came alone, got caught near a Border Patrol checkpoint in Texas and left voluntarily.

The latest trip cost him $6,000. And he still has his nephew and wife back in Honduras whom he hopes to bring to the U.S. one day. Ortiz said he has no intention of avoiding his scheduled court appearance in North Carolina.
“I want to go to court because possibly it will go well. Possibly. I want to be legal. I’m not a criminal,” he said.

North Carolina was just one of many diverse destinations of migrants passing through McAllen. Some of those gathered at the Sacred Heart migrant center were headed for Los Angeles; San Francisco; Atlanta; Newport, R.I.; and Fairhope, Ala.

Sister Norma Pimentel runs the migrant center in this Rio Grande Valley border city, ground zero for the immigrant influx that in 2014 overwhelmed border holding areas and youth shelters with more than 68,000 children.

The influx continued this year, although Pimentel noticed a decrease in migrants, particularly Central Americans, arriving during the last two months.

“The numbers have definitely dropped. What I heard from the consulates is Mexico is deporting a lot more people,” she said.

But the number of migrants arriving has already picked up again this month from fewer than 20 a day to about 20 or 30, she said. “The numbers do seem to be higher than past years."

“We’re just doing one day at a time,” Pimentel said of plans for summer at the center, once a temporary facility now expanded to include a dining area, showers and two outdoor tents that sleep 60.


Martha Tista, 32, arrived this month with four children and a 9-month-old grandson after fleeing threats in her village in northern Guatemala.

As she fed her grandson a bottle at the church center, Tista said she has friends who tried to make it to the U.S. but were caught by authorities in Mexico and deported back to Central America.

“It’s harder to run with children,” she said.

Now she hopes to join her husband and mother in Nashville.

Back in Guatemala, Tista had a neighbor the same age as her, with a 16-year-old daughter like hers and a husband working in the U.S. Someone tried to extort money from her. When she didn’t pay, Tista said, they shot the woman and her daughter in the street, killing both. She pulled up photos on her cellphone of the woman, a small dark figure in a snow white casket.

In addition to the violence driving migration, during the summer, she said, farm work dries up.

“There will be more,” she predicted.

Illegal migration by children and families dips slightly on U.S.-Mexico border - LA Times