Apprehensions at the Southern Border Reached a 21-Year High in July

What’s the story?

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Thursday released its operational statistics for the month of July, which was the fifth consecutive month in which apprehensions of people attempting to enter the country illegally continued at the highest level in 21 years.
• CBP apprehended 212,672 unauthorized immigrants at the Southern border in July, the most apprehensions in a single month since March 2000 when there were 220,063 apprehensions. 
• The number of border apprehensions in July was an increase from 188,829 in June; 180,034 in May; 178,854 in April; and 173,337 in March. It is the only five-month period dating back to at least fiscal year 2000 in which CBP enforcement actions exceeded 170,000 each month.
• The month of July pushed the number of CBP enforcement actions at the Southern border to 1,331,822 for FY2021 to date (with two months remaining in the fiscal year). That figure already exceeds the 977,509 apprehensions in FY2019.  
• The number of unaccompanied minors apprehended on the Southern border in July was 18,962 ― which surpasses the previous record of 18,890 set in March of this year.
• 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 nine months of the fiscal year to date (FY2021 runs from October 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021):

• According to CBP’s latest figures for the Southern border, the agency has conducted life-saving search and rescue efforts 10,275 times in the nine months of FY2021 to date ― more than the past two full fiscal years combined (4,920 in FY2019 and 5,071 in FY2020). In July, CBP conducted 1,083 life-saving search and rescue efforts.

RELATED READING

• Southern Border Apprehensions Continued to Rise in June, Now Exceed 1 Million for Fiscal Year 2021 (7/16/21)
• Southern Border Apprehensions Remained at Historic Levels in May - Are You Concerned About Border Security? (6/11/21)
• 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: Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs photo by Mani Albrecht via Flickr / Public Domain)