In the month of May, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered 239,416 illegal immigrants along the Southern Border – the highest total for a single month in the history of the United States.
This represented a 2% increase over the month of April, when 235,478 illegal immigrants were encountered.
CBP reported that 69% of all encounters of illegal immigrants, or 165,200 individuals, were single adults. There are also 59,282 encounters of individuals travelling as a family unit, and 14,699 encounters of unaccompanied children – up 21% as compared with April.
Children who travel unaccompanied from Central and South America to the United States face severe risks along their journey.
According to one government study, children face risks of “exploitation, violence and death” while en route.
The study found that “between 75-80% of newly arriving unaccompanied children are victims of human trafficking, as they travel into the U.S. with smugglers who then sell them into forced labor or prostitution.”
Following the release of May’s border numbers, CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement, “Current restrictions at the U.S. border have not changed: single adults and families encountered at the Southwest Border will continue to be expelled, where appropriate, under Title 42.”
“As temperatures start to rise in the summer, human smugglers will continue to exploit vulnerable populations and recklessly endanger the lives of migrants for financial gain. The terrain along the Southwest Border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert that migrants must hike after crossing the border are unforgiving,” he added.
Photo Credit: U.S. CBP
So far for this fiscal year, from October 2021 through May 2022, CBP has encountered a staggering 1,536,899 illegal immigrants along the Southern Border.
And yet, that number doesn’t include the number of illegal immigrants that evaded apprehension by the CBP.
According to Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin, CBP sources have disclosed that there have been an additional 440,000 “known gotaways” at the border since the beginning of the fiscal year.
For years, Focus on the Family has called for lawmakers in both parties to get serious about reforming and fixing our immigration system.
Some of the biggest victims of our broken immigration are the immigrant women and children who are smuggled and trafficked by the drug cartels across our Southern Border.
Our elected leaders must get serious about this issue and finally resolve our immigration crisis. Decades of talk is enough. It’s time for action.
Related articles:
It’s Compassionate to Oppose Illegal Immigration. Here’s Why.
Burgeoning Border Crisis Spirals Out of Control, Officials Fear ‘Mass Migration Event’
Photo from Shutterstock.
