Pity it does not mention how many were detaied at a port of entry. Because that would support the underlying argument of the need for a wall. Instead, we are left guessing why that information was left out
And just because an Obama appointed guy says "by any standard" it does not remove my critical thinking
How come so many more illegals are coming now? The number of apprehensions had been trending down pre-Trump.
It’s tough to find those numbers, but in a quick search, I found this article:
NYT article
“At least 70 such groups of 100 or more people have turned themselves in at Border Patrol stations that typically are staffed by only a handful of agents, often hours away from civilization. By comparison, only 13 such groups arrived in the last fiscal year, and two in the year before.”
These numbers seem like a conservative estimate over the beginning of this fiscal year. I found other estimates that were higher, and it is only the people that voluntarily turned themselves over.
I also found these things interesting:
“Arrests along the southern border have increased 97 percent since last year, the Border Patrol said, with a 434 percent increase in the El Paso sector, which covers the state of New Mexico and the two westernmost counties of Texas. Families, mainly from Central America, continue to arrive in ever-larger groups in remote parts of the southwest...Understanding what is happening on the border is difficult because, while the numbers are currently higher than they have been in several years, they are nowhere near the historic levels of migration seen across the southwest border. Arrests for illegally crossing the border reached up to 1.64 million in 2000, under President Clinton. In the 2018 fiscal year, they reached 396,579. For the first five months of the current fiscal year, 268,044 have been apprehended.” (The ellipse was the preceding paragraph I cut and pasted)
Also:
“Now, the majority of border crossers are not single men but families — fathers from Honduras with adolescent boys they are pulling away from gang violence, mothers with toddlers from Guatemala whose farms have been lost to drought. While they may not have a good case to remain in the United States permanently, it is not so easy to speedily deport them if they arrive with children and claim protection under the asylum laws.” and “Finally, detaining families even for the first few days after their arrival in the United States, while they are undergoing initial processing, is also a challenging job.
Often arriving exhausted, dehydrated, and some of them requiring urgent medical care, the families need food, diapers, infant formula and space to play. They can often spend days inside cramped concrete cells that were built to house the previous generation of border crossers — young, single men who would likely be there only a few hours.”
Zero tolerance + Families immigrating + Pre-detain those seeking asylum = A LOT more people detained for a lot longer than was the norm
Hence, trump gets his “national emergency.” Is it a crisis? Yes, it is a humanitarian crisis, and I believe it will get worse if trump is allowed to cut all aid to the 3 Mexicos directly below Mexico.
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