Between December 1 and December 28, the Border Patrol detained enough migrants to prevent them from entering the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Authorities were managing more than 10,000 border crossings daily until numbers recently began to decline.
While the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service deported more than 142,000 undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2023, nearly double the number in the previous calendar.
The number of returnees between October 1, 2022 and September 30, 2023 was exactly 142,580 illegal migrants, almost twice as many as in the 2022 fiscal year (72,177), as the federal authority announced.
About 18,000 of them were parents and children, including minors, traveling as families. That's more than the 14,400 reported in fiscal year 2020 under the Donald Trump administration (2017-2021).
The report's data also highlighted the 62,545 deportations under Title 42, the measure that was protected by the public health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and allowed for rapid repatriation from the border.
The controversial Title 42 was repealed in May of this year and 65,076 deportation orders were issued under this provision in fiscal year 2022.
Because of this crisis, a delegation sent by President Joe Biden and led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Mexico this week to meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Both parties described the talks as “productive”.
Border security, which continues to be a vulnerability for Biden in 2024, was the focus of negotiations on an immigration deal this month – with strong demands from congressional Republicans – in return for support for an additional request for military aid to Ukraine. But talks were paused for the Christmas and New Year's break and will most likely resume when lawmakers return to the Capitol on Jan. 8.
In his recent appearances, former President Donald Trump, who polls are the favorite among candidates for the 2024 Republican nomination, stepped up his anti-immigrant rhetoric.
He says migrants are “the poison in the blood” of this country and vowed to carry out mass deportations when he returns to the White House in January 2025
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