The number of large groups, consisting of 100 or more people, increased from 10 groups in fiscal year 2020, when border crossings dropped dramatically at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Customs and Border Protection data. But the number of large groups has dropped compared to 2019 during the increase in the migrant frontier. The data is for the fiscal year, which begins in October, meaning that some of the large groups may have arrived during the Trump administration.
Border Patrol officers warned this week of the increase in children and migrant families that cross illegally to the United States. For weeks, the Biden government struggled to get children out of the border facilities within the required legal time limit, overloading resources and leaving children in overcrowded conditions.
“No end in sight”, Chief Patrol Officer for the Rio Grande Valley Patrol, Brian Hastings
tweeted Wednesday, “while large groups continue to enter.”
However, the number of groups is well below the 213 large groups found in fiscal year 2019, during the outbreak of migrants driven mainly by families from the countries of the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
It is also about half the number of large groups compared to a similar time period in 2019, when 70 large groups were detained.
At the time, then Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that the current border crisis “leaves many minors and families at extreme risk of being exploited by traffickers, human smugglers, gangs and other nefarious actors who seek to profit at their expense” .
These large groups often include children and families, who often become border officials and do not try to escape from prison.
The most recent data show the pressure that the authorities face at the border and arrive at the moment when the government makes a public relations speech to explain its efforts.
The White House held several press conferences this week on the border situation and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was on CBS’s “This Morning” program telling migrants not to go to the border.
He emphasized that “a border patrol post is no place for a child” and said that DHS is working with the Department of Health and Human Services “to transport them quickly”.
CLARIFICATION: This title has been updated to clarify that the data on large group meetings is from this fiscal year.
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