Southern Border Apprehensions Remained at Historic Levels in May - Are You Concerned About Border Security?

What’s the story?

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Wednesday released its operational statistics for the month of May and revealed that it was the third straight month in which apprehensions of people attempting to enter the country illegally continued at the highest level in over two decades.
• CBP apprehended 180,034 unauthorized immigrants at the Southern border in May, an increase from 178,854 in April and 173,337 in March. 
• The number of unaccompanied minors apprehended by CBP declined to 14,144 in May after an all-time high of 18,890 in March and 17,171 in April, which had the second-largest number of unaccompanied minor apprehensions in a month all-time. The number of unaccompanied minors apprehended in May 2021 ranks third all-time.
• The CBP chart below compares the total number of monthly border apprehensions from the last three fiscal years to the current year, which has been higher than the preceding years in each of the eight months of the fiscal year to date (FY21 runs from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021):

• The CBP release notes that because of pandemic-related expedited expulsion procedures there were a higher than normal number of cases in which an individual person was apprehended more than once while trying to enter the country illegally. In May, 38% of apprehensions were individuals who had at least one prior encounter with CBP in the past 12 months, compared to an average one-year re-encounter rate of 15% from FY2014-2019.

RELATED READING

• Border Apprehensions Continued at Historic Pace in April (5/13/21)
• CBP Projects Record Number of Unaccompanied Minors to be Apprehended Crossing the Border in Fiscal Year 2021 (4/2/21)
• Southwest Border Apprehensions Approaching Record Levels Amid Migration Surge (3/19/21)

— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: Kris Grogan, CBP Office of Public Affairs - Customs and Border Protection via Flickr / Public Domain)