According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data released Thursday, the number of attempted border crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border surpassed 200,000 in July, the highest monthly figure in 21 years.
CBP reported 212,672 encounters along the Southwest Border in July, including 82,966 family members and 18,962 unaccompanied teenagers and children, according to the agency’s monthly operational update.
“One of the biggest difficulties we face is the situation at the border,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a news conference in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas on Thursday.
“It’s a difficult change that includes vulnerable people at a time when there’s a global pandemic.”
The number of arrests in July was up 13% from June, and it had been the second-highest monthly total on record along the Mexican border.
During financial year 2021, 845,307 persons were stopped at the border, up from 796,400 in 2019.
The agency also discovered that 154,288 of the 212,672 encounters involved unique individuals, with 27 percent involving people who had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months.
The Biden administration has prolonged Title 42, a Trump-era rule that allows border authorities to deport migrants caught between ports of entry with a contagious disease like COVID-19.
On Thursday, the CBP reported that in July, 85,563 single adults and 9,948 relations were processed for removal from the us under Title 42.
Also under Title 42, the US has begun to conduct “expulsion flights,” in which migrants are flown to southern Mexico in an attempt to persuade them to return to their home country rather than attempt to enter the US.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the U.N. Refugee Agency called the practice “troubling.”
“At a time when the region is seeing a big increase within the number of asylum seekers and migrants, the Title 42 expulsion flights will put additional strain on the already overburdened humanitarian response capacity in southern Mexico, increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission across national borders, and run counter to regional efforts to share responsibility for addressing the root causes.”
