Border Arrests Jumped 36% in May Despite Trump Emergency Crackdown

Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The Texas Tribune

The number of migrants detained by U.S. authorities at the Mexico border rose 36% in May, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures released Friday, a sign that the deterrent effects of President Donald Trump’s emergency pandemic measures might be wearing off.

CBP took 23,118 migrants into custody last month, up from 16,966 in April, the figures show. Border arrests typically rise in late spring as U.S. seasonal labor demands increase, but last month’s totals were still far below the figures recorded in May 2019, when 144,116 were detained at the peak of last year’s border crisis.

The uptick at the border last month occurred despite the administration’s continued application of emergency restrictions that have suspended normal immigration proceedings and allowed for the rapid “expulsion” of nearly every migrant who crosses into the United States illegally.

Those emergency health orders, which CBP refers to as Title 42, allowed the agency to expel 19,707 border crossers last month, including minors and asylum seekers who are no longer afforded additional legal protections. The Trump administration argues the emergency measures have aided in preventing a wider coronavirus outbreak by limiting the number of detainees held in cramped border cells.

“Implementation of COVID-19 policies allowed CBP to process and return, in under two hours, 96% of those subject to [Title 42], dramatically reducing human contact, the risk of spread, and the strain on U.S. healthcare facilities, helping the United States avert a public health disaster,” the agency said in a statement Friday.

Since the implementation of the emergency orders in late March, nearly 43,000 migrants have been subjected to the rapid-expulsion proceedings, according to CBP figures. Once in U.S. custody, the migrants’ fingerprints and documents are quickly recorded, and they are driven to the nearest border crossing for delivery to Mexican authorities.

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