Migrants have flocked to the U.S.-Mexico border at record rates in 2022. Border states have reported being overwhelmed, and they’re pointing to new numbers to prove it. For the first time ever, the number of migrants arrested at the border has topped 2 million in less than one fiscal year. According to new U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, agents detained 203,598 migrants crossing from Mexico, putting authorities on pace to tally more than 2.3 million arrests during the government’s 2022 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
The total far exceeds last year’s record of more than 1.7 million migrant arrests. In 2021, a record 566 people died crossing the border. In 2022, 782 migrant deaths occurred at the southern border, according to CBP officials who spoke to Fox News.
Democrats have said the communist regimes of some South American countries are driving migrants to the U.S. Migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba accounted for more than one third of those taken into custody along the southern border last month.
Republicans have blamed the Biden Administration’s reversal of former President Donald Trump’s border policies for the migrant surge. Over the past several months, the Republican governors of Texas, Arizona, and Florida have sent more than 10,000 migrants on buses to Washington, New York and other northern destinations to put pressure on Democrats by straining relief services in their jurisdictions.
Leaders from both parties continue to debate why the migrant surge is happening and what to do about it, but both sides acknowledge the data pointing to a historic problem at the southern border.
