() — US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encounters with migrants along the border with Mexico have already exceeded 2 million so far this fiscal year, according to recently released agency data, and migration from countries such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba is increasing.
In August, encounters with migrants rose to 203,598 along the southern US border, the data shows. Of those, 22% involved people who crossed more than once.
The Biden administration continues to enforce an emergency pandemic restriction, known as Title 42, along the border that allows border authorities to turn away migrants, but there are limitations based on nationality. Cold relations with countries like Cuba and Venezuela also prevent the US from removing people.
Migrants stand in line as they wait to be processed by the US Border Patrol after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border in Yuma, Arizona, in the early hours of July 11, 2022. (Photo by ALLISON DINNER/ AFP via Getty Images)
Last month, 55,333 migrants found at the border were from Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua, an increase of 175% since last August.
“The failed communist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are fueling a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent surge in encounters on the southwestern border of the United States,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement. release.
Republican governors have criticized the Biden administration for the influx of immigrants, focusing on its handling of the US-Mexico border and driving immigrants out of their states in what Democrats have described as political chicanery.
Administration officials admitted in a call with reporters Monday that increased migration is a challenge. Asked if the administration is considering moving immigrants inland, one official cited ongoing discussion about how to improve processing along the border.
“One solution that we know is not a good solution is for hostile governors to bus or plane migrants, often tricking them, to places they had no intention of going without any coordination,” the official said.
The Biden administration, officials argued, is focused on increasing assistance to Western Hemisphere countries hosting Venezuelan migrants, including Colombia, Ecuador and Costa Rica, and expanding refugee resettlement to those displaced in the region.
In addition to those efforts, the administration says it is winding down asylum processing so cases can be heard faster.
The administration has also doubled down on the effort to dismantle human smuggling networks by increasing more than 1,300 troops in Latin America and around the US border and committing $50 million to the effort. The administration reports that nearly 5,000 arrests have been made in the US and throughout the region as part of that effort.
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