U.S. Customs and Border Protection took more than 172,000 illegal aliens into custody in March, making it the busiest month for the agency in more than 20 years.
While nearly 53,000 of these migrants were members of family units, a record-breaking 18,890 were unaccompanied teens and children, many of whom were packed into overcrowded shelters plagued by COVID-19 spread and “dangerous” conditions for longer than the 72-hour limit permitted by federal law. Despite the Biden administration’s claims that many of those crossing the southern border are coming to the United States to seek shelter and help over gang violence and hurricane-stricken countries, the largest number of border crossings during the last month were committed by more than 99,000 single adults, many of whom are not asylum-seekers.
Something to note about the new CBP apprehension numbers for March (the highest since 2001) — the vast majority of those arrested after crossing the border illegally are single adults. Most are men coming to the US to work; economic migrants, not asylum-seekers. pic.twitter.com/VogfTndb1k
— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) April 8, 2021
While the Biden administration has repeatedly denied that there’s a border crisis and blamed the abrupt migration influx on normal seasonal surges, the high numbers of illegal border crossings since the president assumed office has grown exponentially. Increases even between February and March data forced the CBP to stretch its chart to accommodate the largest numbers it has seen in at least two decades.
NEW: CBP has published March numbers showing 172,331 taken into custody, the most in nearly two decades.
The blue line on the graph below is 2021. CBP had to redo it chart to stretch the Y axis. Our story https://t.co/EgrwOA0aIn pic.twitter.com/CHdhK3nbgT
— Nick Miroff (@NickMiroff) April 8, 2021
CBP’s newest data follows news that Border Patrol agents are letting nearly 1,000 illegal aliens cross the border every day unpursued because they are focused on tending to the overwhelming number of unaccompanied minors and migrant families flooding holding centers. Of those illegal migrants who are arrested, many are being released by Border Patrol agents without a return court date due to limited space in already-overcrowded holding facilities.
The problems at the southern border appear to be largely unaddressed by the current administration. While a looming 2 million more migrants are expected to make their way across the U.S.-Mexico border by September, Biden and his team continue to deny that their open-border rhetoric is spurring illegal aliens to take the dangerous journey to the United States.
Despite the Democratic administration’s confidence that the border crisis is merely a “challenge” created by the former administration, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently said it is the new president’s migration policies and rhetoric that sparked hopeful “expectations” and created the influx of migrants. Some illegal aliens who crossed the border have also testified that Biden was the deciding factor for why they chose to come to the U.S.