Feds: 1,000 Illegal Immigrants Crossing Border Every Day
Even months after the implementation of the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy at the southern border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said this week that a “significant” number of illegal border entries occur every day.
“We’re still seeing about 1,000 a day crossing our border illegally between ports of entry, and another two to three hundred arriving without documents at ports of entry,” he said in a Fox News Channel interview on Tuesday. “So the numbers are still significant.”
.@CBP_McAleenan: “We’re still seeing about a thousand a day crossing our border illegally.” pic.twitter.com/Lq6YV6wn8P
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 24, 2018
As Newsmax reported, McAleenan went on to cite another trend found in the recent statistics.
“For the single adults, we’re prosecuting at a higher level than before, more than quadrupled from the prior administration,” he said.
McAleenan said that recent reports show roughly “55 percent of all single adults are being prosecuted right now” for charges of illegally entering the U.S.
He predicted that news of the increased prosecution rate will in itself result in fewer attempts to cross the border.
“That’s an extra sanction that provides a deterrent for future crossings,” he said.
McAleenan also addressed some other immigration-related topics, including the controversial practice of separating parents and children.
Explaining that keeping family units intact throughout their detention and court proceedings makes the process much more difficult, he envisioned a “much better system” that would “allow us to keep families together.”
The commissioner said that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is “working on hiring about 100 judges this calendar year, which will augment that capability a great deal.”
He went on to applaud the collaborative effort of his agency’s border patrol agents and local law enforcement officers along the border.
“Our border patrol agents are working very hard in south Texas as well as in Arizona and across the whole border,” McAleenan said.
As The Western Journal previously reported, Sessions addressed the Trump administration’s emphasis on prosecuting immigration laws earlier this year during a speech in Arizona.
“If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” he said in May. “It’s that simple.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Tyler Houlton echoed those comments at the time, telling those who enter the United States illegally that they “have broken the law and will be referred for prosecution.”
He said the agency has “zero tolerance for those who break the law and will no longer exempt classes or groups of people from prosecution.”
The policy has been particularly unpopular among critics of the administration. During Sessions’ speech in Arizona, a heckler with a loudspeaker denounced the attorney general as an “evil, evil man.”
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