Border crossings down 56% from pre-Title 42 end but ‘too early’ to draw conclusions: DHS
Kaelan Deese
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The Department of Homeland Security maintained immigrants crossing the southern land border had dropped 56% from levels recorded last week — but added it is “too early to draw any definitive conclusions” as authorities transition away from Title 42 measures.
DHS had projected a surge of up to 13,000 immigrants per day at the border, far above the average of 10,000 per day recorded last week. Instead, the number of migrant border crossings has plummeted to just under 4,400 per day and marks a 56% decrease from last week, Blas Nunez-Neto, the DHS assistant secretary for border and immigration policy, said on Wednesday morning.
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“Since May 12, the U.S. Border Patrol has experienced a steady decrease in daily encounters. … We continue to see encouraging signs that the measures we have put in place are working,” Nunez-Neto said, adding, regarding whether the pattern continues, “it is still too early to draw any definitive conclusions here, and we will be watching the situation unfold by the hour.”
Encounters are described as interactions between U.S. border officials and foreign nationals who cross the border without prior authorization.
“While we are encouraged by these early results, we are just in the first week of this transition from Title 42 to Title 8 authorities,” he said, referring to the nonemergency rules for handling immigrants and asylum-seekers who enter the United States without permission. Title 8 procedures form a paper trail that Title 42 lacked and will impose a possible five-year ban on reentry for repeat offenses.
Nunez-Neto warned that officials understand illegal “smugglers will continue to weaponize misinformation about changes in border policy to put migrants’ lives at risk.”
To cut back on the number of illegal crossings, the U.S. began programs earlier this year to allow Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians to apply for temporary entrance to the U.S., though they must have a valid passport and secure a U.S.-based financial sponsor.
Nunez-Neto added that since May 12, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has processed 5,000 applicants through its digital infrastructure known as the CBP One app.
“The top three nationalities we are currently seeing at the border are 1,000 individuals a day from Mexico, 510 a day from Colombia, and 470 a day from Guatemala. By contrast, in the days before the lifting of Title 42, we were seeing 2,400 individuals a day from Venezuela, 1,900 a day from Mexico, and 1,400 a day from Colombia,” Nunez-Neto said.
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A reduction in encounters comes as Republican governors have deployed their own state personnel to the southern border to fend off any possible surge in immigrants.
Nunez-Neto remarked on those efforts from governors, including Greg Abbott (R-TX) and Ron DeSantis (R-FL), saying, “at times,” those actions are “really for purely political reasons and that do not involve the kind of coordination that we really need to see at the border.”