Trump administration working to close immigration ‘loopholes’ — but border is still a crisis, officials say

Washington Post logoEL PASO — Unauthorized migration across the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped significantly since a record influx of 140,000 people in May, but the border remains “in crisis” and Congress needs to act to address it, Trump administration officials said here Tuesday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents took 970,000 people into custody along the southern border in the past year — more than double the previous year’s total — including a “record-breaking” number of families, CBP’s acting commissioner Mark Morgan said. Border crossings in fiscal 2019 hit their highest number in more than a decade, despite a continuous drop in border crossings during the past four months, Morgan said.

Morgan, who spoke at a news conference in front of the steel-and-concrete border barrier that separates this Texas border city from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, railed against Congress for sitting “idly by” while immigration authorities grappled with historic influxes of migrants. Morgan said Congress instead should pass legislation that the Trump administration believes will deter future migration.

View the complete October 29 article by Robert Moore and Abigail Hauslohner on The Washington Post website here.