Border Crisis: Illegal Crossings May Be Far Higher Than Official Numbers

A new Department of Homeland Security study revises and lowers the estimated success rate in stopping illegal immigrants crossing the southern border, but even that figure paints a misleading picture, according to the president of the union representing border patrol officers.

The Associated Press said last week that the report, which has not yet been made public, estimates that 54 percent of the roughly 315,000 people trying to cross the border in fiscal year 2015 succeeded. That is significantly worse than the 81 percent success rate in stopping illegal border crossings that the government officially claims.

The discrepancy is the result of differing methodology. The study’s authors did not count people who turned themselves in and then immediately applied for asylum. That number was 140,000 last year, up from 20,000 a decade ago. Counting them as illegal immigration stops makes the border appear more secure than it is. In addition, the report does not include so-called “touch-backs,” people who cross over the boundary but then run back when they see border patrol officers...

...a directive from the Department of Homeland Security requires border patrol officers to accept the word of anyone caught near the border who says he or she has been in the United States since before Jan. 1, 2014. Judd said the total number of people who fit that category, about 7,000, is small but growing rapidly as the word gets out. He said it tripled in the first six months of the policy...

Judd said the share of illegal immigrants who make it to America probably is closer to 75 percent when counting illegal immigrants who abscond or are simply allowed to go free without even getting a notice to appear...

The number of illegal immigrants getting through — 170,000 last year — was 10 times higher in fiscal year 2005 [when the original Minuteman Project was active on the border]...

CAIRCO research

Border security and porous United States - Mexico border fence

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