U.S. Customs and Border Protection has released its monthly operations report for December 2021 and figures indicate while there was a decrease in the number of apprehensions of unaccompanied minors along the Southwest border, there was a slight increase in apprehensions of family units/individuals.
The report states there were 11,921 encounters of unaccompanied children in December 2021, which is a decrease of about 14% from the 13,937 unaccompanied children in November.
An unaccompanied child is defined as a child under 18 years of age who enters the United States illegally without a parent or an adult.
Encounters of family units/individuals increased by 15% to 51,624 in December from 45,062 in November.
In the Rio Grande Valley Sector of the U.S .Border Patrol there was a decrease in the number of unaccompanied children from November to December.
In November there were a total of 48,006 apprehensions. Of that number there were 22,000 single adults, 17,700 family units, and 7,888 unaccompanied children apprehended, said Christian Alvarez, acting assistant chief patrol agent for the RGV Sector
In December, there was total of 43,844 apprehensions with 23,675 single adults, 13,942 family units, and 6,227 unaccompanied children.
Alvarez said there could be several reasons why authorities saw a decrease in the number of overall apprehensions including the ongoing message to undocumented immigrants that the borders are not opened and that migrants will be processed and then deported back to their countries of origin.
“The majority of people are being returned to where they came from,” he said.
“There are a lot of reasons why it (the numbers change) does that. Maybe people decide that they don’t want to travel during these months, it’s the holidays and they want to stay with their families whether it’s in the U.S. or their native country. But, some years we do notice that it’s (the numbers) are higher in December. There isn’t one specific reason” why, Alvarez said.
Alvarez said the first three months of the 2022-2023 fiscal year which is October, November and December, authorities have already seen an increase of 153% compared to the same time frame last fiscal year.
During fiscal year 2021, the RGV sector experienced among one of the highest apprehension numbers it had seen with nearly 550,000 apprehensions.
“That number, there really hasn’t been a sharp decline or increase, it has just remained steady so, that is why we are still seeing the first three months of this fiscal year which is October, November and December are kind of keeping in pace in what we saw last year,” Alvarez said.
Under Title 42, those migrants that are apprehended and processed are returned to their native country. Mexican nationals are usually returned to Mexico in about a couple of hours. It takes a few days for migrants from other countries to be deported because Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Office of Refugee Resettlement take over these cases once they have been processed by Border Patrol.
Southwest border statistics for December show, the average number of unaccompanied minors in CBP custody was 352 per day compared to 926 per day in November.
CBP reports it encountered an average of 5,679 individuals in a day at the Southwest border in December 2021, a slight decrease from the November 2021 daily average.
The number of unique individuals apprehended at the borders in December was 135,040, a 5% percent increase over the numbers reported in November.
In total, there were 178,840 encounters with migrants along the Southwest land border in December, which was a 2% increase compared to November. Of that figure, 23% involved individuals who had a least one prior encounter within 12 months, compared to an average one-year reencounter rate of 14 percent between 2014-2019.
Border Patrol agents at the Fort Brown station in Brownsville in the first week of December apprehended 442 undocumented migrants from Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina and Panama during three separate incidents.
Other apprehensions of undocumented immigrants occurred in San Manuel, La Grulla, and out in the Rio Grande Valley, Hidalgo, Encino, Harlingen, Mission, Rio Grande City and the Javier Vega Jr. Border Patrol checkpoint.
Nationwide, drug seizures of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana and fentanyl were down by 42% from December to November, however there were some huge drug seizures in the RGV in December.
On Dec. 10 and Dec. 12, CBP officers stationed at the Hidalgo International Bridge seized over $3 million in methamphetamine. One seizure involved 191.81 pounds of the drug while the second involved 27.46 pounds of methamphetamine. The drugs have a street value of $3,061,000. Both drivers of the vehicles in which the drugs were seized from were United States citizens.
Several seizures were also made by officers stationed at the Los Indios International Bridge, the Gateway International Bridge and the B&M Bridge. In these cases the officers seized 42 pounds of cocaine and 16 pounds of methamphetamine. The street value of these drugs is estimated at $681,596.
CBP also reported in increase in travels at the ports of entry and air travel. From December 2021 to 2020 there was a 160.87% increase in air travel.
In addition, passenger vehicles increased to 6,598,687 from 4,425,604 or a 49.10% increase. Pedestrian traffic increased to 3,582,711 from 1,924,270 or 86.19%, and commercial truck traffic increased to 1,007,180 from 969,646, which was a 3.87% increase. Authorities attribute the increases to the reopening of the borders following their closure to non-essential travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The federal agencies also report that since the start of the pandemic over 18,614 CBP employees tested positive for COVID-19. Sixty-four have passed away.
