Illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border is at its lowest rate in years, according to Department of Homeland Security figures released last week that signal the administration has managed not only to cut the flow of children and families from Central America, but also to keep Mexican migration slow.
The border patrol caught just 151,705 illegal immigrants trying to cross the southwest border in the first six months of the fiscal year, which is a drop of 28 percent from the previous year, and is the lowest monthly average in recent records dating back to the end of the Clinton administration.
Just as striking is the drop in unaccompanied minors and families from three Central American countries — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — that sparked last summer’s troubling surge and left the administration playing catch-up. Apprehensions of children from those countries are down some 45 percent this year, while families from those countries have dropped 30 percent.
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson released the numbers in a press conference Friday as part of an effort to make his department more transparent. Both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have said secrecy and a lack of data from the Homeland Security Department have hurt President Obama’s push for a broad immigration bill in Congress.
Mr. Johnson said the drop in crossings is coming despite an improving economy, which generally draws more illegal migrants. Instead, the secretary said, a boost in manpower and technology along the southwestern border, coupled with public messages in Latin America discouraging would-be migrants from making the journey, have helped turn the tide.
“The message has seemed to have gotten through from the north to Central America that the misinformation the coyotes were putting out about ’permisos’ in this country has been corrected, and that people now believe that it is harder to cross our southern border illegally,” Mr. Johnson said.
“Coyotes” is the name for the smugglers who bring the illegal immigrants on the perilous journey across the border, while “permisos,” or free passes, is what illegal immigrants call the court papers illegal immigrants are usually given when they are caught at the border.
The documents are technically known as a “Notice to Appear,” which means someone is in deportation proceedings, but since few actually show for their court dates, and most disappear into the shadows with the rest of the illegal immigrant population, they seemed like free passes to would-be illegal crossers.
Mr. Johnson credited El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala with doing more to try to keep their citizens from making the trip and Mexico for stepping up its efforts to discourage the crossers from transiting through that country.
“We are not declaring mission accomplished. We believe that there is more we can and should do when it comes to strengthening border security,” Mr. Johnson said.
The number of illegal immigrants caught is thought to be a rough measure of the total flow trying to come, so a drop in apprehensions is seen as an indication that fewer people are successfully entering — though some question whether that’s an accurate calculation.
Good news on the border is coupled with poorer performance in the interior, where deportations are actually down, as The Washington Times reported last week, suggesting that while fewer new illegal immigrants are arriving, those who are here are unlikely to be sent back home by this administration.
Overall, deportations are down 25 percent this year compared to through the same point in fiscal year 2014, and are down 40 percent versus their peak in 2012. The steady decrease exactly tracks the beginning of Mr. Obama’s initial deportation amnesty, which began in August 2012, which carved hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants out of any danger of being removed.
The latest amnesty, announced in November, could also be cutting into numbers — though Mr. Johnson said as the full amnesty and all of the other changes Mr. Obama announced last year go into effect, he expects things could change further.
“Our new policies are in transition right now,” he said. “I hesitate to predict what the removal-return numbers are going to look like at the end of the year.”
Mr. Johnson blamed several factors, including his officers’ focus on deporting new illegal arrivals, for the drop. With fewer people crossing illegally, that means fewer folks who meet Mr. Obama’s criteria for whom to deport.
Homeland Security officials also blamed state and local officials, who have refused to honor requests to hold illegal immigrants for pickup by federal agents, for some of the drop in deportations.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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