The surge at the Mexican border has persisted

The surge in Border crossings has persisted.

My prior posts on the situation at the Mexican border underscored the effect of very long delays in court cases for asylum cases – an incentive to apply for asylum. What is going on now, in the summer of 2021, is a sharp rise in the number of single men trying to cross over. They are sent back, and they try again, are caught, and sent back again – thus driving up the numbers of crossings.

I have not seen this mentioned elsewhere – it is to me reasonable that many people who cross illegally speculate that once they are in the country, they can fabricate a history which shows that they were in the U.S. before the cut off date for legalization of unauthorized persons — the idea is to get in right now. When the 1986 reform act was implemented, granting legal status to about three million persons, there was a lot of gaming for status as a farm worker in order to become a legal resident.

In March Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas addressed the problem at the time of high volumes of single men, families and unaccompanied children. The situation has worsened according to a July 16 article in the Wall Street Journal:

“Border Patrol agents have made more than a million arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border so far this year, already higher than any full-year total since at least 2005…..Agents made more than 178,000 arrests in June, a 3% increase over the prior month. The number of migrants traveling as families arrested crossing the border illegally rose once more in June to around 50,000, a 23% increase over the previous month.”




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