Record numbers of families streamed across U.S border illegally in August -with migrant arrests surging over 30% overall
- For the first time during Joe Biden's presidency, families were the biggest demographic moving across the US-Mexico border - surpassing single adults
- The number of family units crossing into the US in August brings the total number this fiscal year to more than half a million people
US Border Patrol has arrested at least 91,000 migrants who crossed the overflowing border as part of family groups in August - as detainments rose by 30 percent for two consecutive months.
For the first time during Joe Biden's presidency, families were the biggest demographic moving across the US-Mexico border - surpassing single adults. The influx follows his rolling out of new restrictions to slow down illegal crossings.
This is more than the previous one-month record of 84,486 set in May 2019, which occurred during Donald Trump's tenure, Washington Post reports.
The number of family units crossing into the US in August brings the total number this fiscal year to more than half a million people, preliminary data shows.
For the first time during Joe Biden's presidency, families were the biggest demographic moving across the US-Mexico border - surpassing single adults
A family of migrants, with young children being held by adults, stand beside a razor wire fence as a member of the Texas National Guard stands guard on the banks of the Rio Bravo river on August 28, 2023
Migrants - including young children still in diapers - cross the Rio Grande into the United States August 4, 2023
The influx of children traveling with adults to come into the US has shown Biden's mere warnings about families not crossing the border have not been listened to.
Throughout August, images from the border showed a number of families - including very young children, toddlers, and babies - scurrying through walkways, wading through rivers, and scaling fences to get into Texas.
On August 4, a group of adult migrants with at least three accompanying children were seen desperately crossing the Rio Grande, with the diaper-wearing kids traveling on shoulders.
And in images from August 21, mothers and fathers were seen hoisting their barefoot children up and over barbed wire fences in fraught attempts to enter the US.
According to the Post's data, Border Patrol made more than 177,000 arrests along the Mexico border in August. This was an uptick from 132,652 in July and 99,539 in June.
Erin Heeter, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said they have repatriated more than 17,000 parents and children since May.
She said that the current movements are 'fueled by season trends.'
Under Trump's administration, they tried taking children from their parents as a deterrent to stop families crossing the US-Mexico border - before turning their attention to expanding the 'Remain in Mexico' scheme.
A group of migrants from Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala successfully scales a border fence
Migrants - including young children - from Central America look for an opening in the concertina wire barrier south of Eagle Pass where a 1000-foot string of buoys has been placed in the river to deter crossing the Rio Grande River into Texas
In March, it was reported that Biden was considering a major U-turn in his immigration policy as administration officials weighed reviving a Trump-era policy detaining families who cross the southern border illegally.
The president eliminated the practice when he took office, and actively campaigned against it saying 'families belong together.'
But as Title 42 - a pandemic-era measure that allows authorities to promptly deport migrants - expired in May, senior White House and Homeland Security officials discussed the possibility of reinstating the program, the New York Times reported.
Biden campaigned against his predecessor's use of family detention, which was also used under former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, for whom Biden served as vice president.
He even tweeted in June 2020, when a federal judge ordered the release of migrant children from detention centers due to the global pandemic: 'Children should be released from ICE detention with their parents immediately.
The influx of children traveling with adults to come into the US has shown Biden's mere warnings about families not crossing the border have not been listened to
A family of five claiming to be from Guatemala and a man stating he was from Peru, in pink shirt, walk through the desert after crossing the border wall in the Tucson Sector of the U.S.-Mexico border on August 29, 2023
Migrant families try to cross the border between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass, in Piedras Negras, Mexico on August 4, 2023
'This is pretty simple, and I can't believe I have to say it: Families belong together.'
Almost immediately after taking office, he shut down all of the family detention centers in the United States as he sought a more humane approach to immigration.
Instead, the Biden administration implemented a practice of releasing families into the country temporarily and using ankle bracelets, traceable cellphones and other methods to keep track of them.
Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas has since considered ending family detention one of his key accomplishments.
And the Biden administration touted the end of the program in its 2023 fiscal year funding request, writing: 'To ensure a more humane treatment of families, the administration is de-emphasizing family detention practices.'
