The Biden administration took a sort of victory lap Monday after a major border surge didn’t materialize, saying that foreign governments have stepped up their own border security and migrants are becoming reluctant to shift from border jumping to using “legal” avenues of entry.
The Border Patrol was running at fewer than 5,000 apprehensions daily from Friday through Sunday, compared with 10,000 daily from Monday through Thursday last week.
The Homeland Security Department had been projecting a rise after the Title 42 pandemic emergency expulsion authority ended on Thursday, so the drop was striking.
“I think what we’ve seen is a combination of the consequences we have imposed on unlawful entry and the work being done by our foreign partners to enforce their borders and these flows, as well as the lawful pathways we’ve made available,” said Blas Nunez-Nieto, an assistant secretary at Homeland Security.
He said the situation is early and authorities still expect smugglers to renew their efforts to entice people to make the journey, but the lower numbers have given Homeland Security some breathing space.
The development is positive for the administration because it has been operating under a temporary restraining order prohibiting it from using “parole” to catch and release illegal immigrants without first giving them a date for an immigration court appearance.
Mr. Nunez-Nieto said migrants released since CBP began complying with the court order have been given an official summons, or notice to appear.
Another 2,400 people were pushed back across the border into Mexico from Friday through Sunday, and hundreds more were put on deportation flights.
The number of people in custody at the border, which reached 27,000 last week, is also down significantly, Mr. Nunez-Nieto said.
He said the U.S. has surged asylum officers to the border to conduct initial interviews to clear people for release into the country. Those who don’t clear the first asylum test are put into speedy deportation proceedings.
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said agents caught 14,752 people jumping the border from Friday through Sunday. They also detected but failed to nab 4,315 others.
Mr. Nunez-Nieto said Guatemala and Mexico, under prodding from the U.S., stiffened their own border security, which may have limited the flow of people.
He said the administration’s carrot-and-stick strategy of declaring new pathways for people to come to the U.S. without jumping the border, while threatening consequences for those who do jump the border, seems to have worked.
“I do think the message that there are consequences in place at the border is an important one that we hope is resonating,” he said.
The National Border Patrol Council, the labor union for agents, cautioned the administration not to celebrate yet.
The NBPC said more than 100,000 migrants are waiting on the Mexican side.
“They are being metered by the cartels and MX govt, but make no mistake they’re coming,” the NBPC said on Twitter. “Cartels are still running the border. That hasn’t changed. They control the flow of illegal aliens coming in. Period.”
Mr. Biden did celebrate. He chided reporters on Sunday by saying the border flow was going “much better than you all expected.”
He also said he has no plans to visit the border because it would “just be disruptive.”
Homeland Security did not reveal the total number of migrants caught and released over the weekend.
The department revealed in court findings that it “paroled” nearly 6,500 people last week.
That included 2,576 migrants released on Friday but who had been put into the parole process before, a top Customs and Border Protection official told U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell.
The judge had ordered CBP to respond to a report in The Washington Times revealing the Friday releases after he issued a temporary restraining order. CBP defended the releases by saying parole had been completed on those migrants, but because CBP doesn’t do overnight releases, the migrants were kept in custody and turned loose after the restraining order.
“Consequently, USBP released on May 12, 2023, these noncitizens who had already been fully processed prior to the time the TRO took effect,” said David S. BeMiller, a senior official at Customs and Border Protection.
He said there are 167 cases where parole information is missing or show that the process was completed after the restraining order. He said CBP needs two more days to track down what happened in those instances.
The Times, citing a Homeland Security source, reported that CBP had paroled roughly 6,000 people on Thursday before the restraining order took effect and 2,500 more on Friday, after the order blocked parole.
Mr. BeMiller said CPB paroled 6,413 people in all, or roughly 2,000 fewer than The Times’ source indicated.
In the wake of The Times’ report, Judge Wetherell issued a show-cause order to Homeland Security to explain what happened.
He said he had “a healthy degree of skepticism” about what appears in the media.
“However, the Court takes allegations of noncompliance with its orders very seriously, irrespective of the source of the allegations,” the judge wrote.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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