Tag: US-Mexico border

Arrests along Mexico border jumped 40% last month, despite Trump administration’s immigration crackdown

Washington Post logoThe number of migrants detained along the Mexico border jumped 40 percent in June, defying a Trump administration emergency crackdown that has cited the coronavirus pandemic to swiftly “expel” those who cross illegally, according to enforcement statistics released Thursday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

U.S. authorities made 32,512 arrests and detentions along the Mexico border in June, up from 23,142 in May. The June total was nearly double the number of detentions recorded in April, after the Trump administration suspended normal immigration proceedings to quickly process most migrants and return them to Mexico in a matter of hours.

CBP figures show the vast majority of those detained in June — 89 percent — were promptly turned back to Mexico using the rapid-expulsion system that is facing a legal challenge from rights groups and immigrant advocates. The administration has defended the expulsions as a necessary measure to keep detention cells along the border empty and avoid the risk of spreading infection. Continue reading.

Trump calls the U.S.-Mexico border ‘extremely dangerous.’ It is — but not for Americans.

The following article by Alex Horton was posted on the Washington Post website January 17, 2018:

A U.S. Border Patrol team uses a dog in a search for undocumented immigrants near the U.S.-Mexico border Dec. 9, 2015. (John Moore/Getty Images)

“The border” is an evocative concept. A majority of Americans do not live near it, and their encounters with the roughly 2,000 miles that separate the United States and Mexico have mostly been art emphasizing lawless badlands — in the form of Cormac McCarthy books and films such as “No Country for Old Men” and “Sicario.”

You can add President Trump’s Twitter feed to that. On Tuesday, the president wrote: “We must have Security at our VERY DANGEROUS SOUTHERN BORDER, and we must have a great WALL to help protect us, and to help stop the massive inflow of drugs pouring into our country!” Continue reading “Trump calls the U.S.-Mexico border ‘extremely dangerous.’ It is — but not for Americans.”