Surge of migrant families at border will continue in 2019, says former DHS official
Surge of migrant families at border will continue in 2019, says former DHS official
by Anna Giaritelli
December 28, 2018 01:07 PM
A recently retired senior Department of Homeland Security official who predicted earlier this year the number of families migrating to the U.S. from Central America was about to spike said Friday that number is going to continue to grow.
And President's Trump's efforts won't completely deter the migrants, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas Homan told Fox News Friday.
"If we can't detain families long enough to see a judge, if we have to release them before they see a judge, you will see a rash of family units come to this country," Homan said.
"Guess what? I was right, even though I was called a fear-mongerer. Now, more families are coming because they know they can't be detained. ICE has run out of family beds. Families are being released from the border right now, enticing more people to come here illegally," Homan said.
Border Patrol agents working along the U.S.-Mexico boundary have historically seen groups of five to 10 migrants at a time arriving between official ports of entry.
Since September, smugglers responsible for moving people from Central America to the U.S. have begun holding migrants on the south side of the border then moving large groups of 100 to 300 people at a time over the border where there is no barrier.
More than 51,000 people were caught illegally entering the United States from Mexico in November, the highest number recorded since Trump took office almost two years ago.
Half of those — 25,172 — were families. That figure is nearly four times more than the 7,000 families apprehended just one year earlier.
DHS reported last month more than 98 of the nearly 95,000 Central American families apprehended in fiscal 2017 remain in the country.
“Smugglers and traffickers know our loopholes well. The lack of legal tools creates pull factors that invite families to cross the border, because they know upon apprehension we will be required by courts to release them into the interior of our country," DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in a statement.
The continued surge also poses a problem for Border Patrol stations, which lack the capacity to hold more than a few dozen illegal immigrants at once while they are processed.
Massive groups continue to cross the border into remote parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
In an incident earlier this month, three agents found a group of 163 people wandering southern New Mexico. One of the children in that group died hours after being taken into federal custody.
Homan, who retired in June, wants changes to judicial rulings, which currently state families cannot be held more than 20 days. He blamed the government's inability to hold people until their asylum cases are decided for the current surge of migrants headed for the U.S.
The Flores settlement agreement and Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act mandate that both families and unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada cannot be turned away or arrested if they illegally enter the country and must be permitted to apply for asylum.
The majority of families and children apprehended are released from federal custody and told to show up for immigration hearings on their asylum requests, but the majority do not show and disappear into the country. About 4 in 5 of those asylum cases are denied because they do not meet asylum standards.
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