CBP Releases Latest Border Numbers

CBP has released its latest “encounter” numbers for August, and while apprehensions rose slightly last month at both the Southwest and the Northern borders compared to July, they are still running close to all-time lows. And even then, there may be an unusual explanation for the increase related to the assistance CBP is giving ICE in the interior.

Southwest Border Apprehensions

In August, Border Patrol agents at the U.S.-Mexico line recorded 6,321 apprehensions, 37.5 percent more than in July (4,596 apprehensions), but an 89-percent decrease compared to August 2024 (just over 58,000).

Some 82 percent of those apprehensions involved single adults, the easiest demographic for agents to process, detain, and deport, and 71.7 percent of those single adults were Mexican nationals, who can be quickly processed and returned in most cases.

Of the remaining 1,469 “other than Mexican” (OTMs) single adults apprehended in August, 824 (56 percent) were from the “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, each a traditional migrant-sending country.

That suggests the flow of illegal entrants is returning to past patterns after four years of illegal global immigration under the Biden administration.

Still, that leaves 645 illegal single adults (10.2 percent of the total) who were neither from Mexico nor from the Northern Triangle, with just less than a quarter of them (153) coming from Venezuela, continuing — at a much slower pace — a pattern of illicit entries from that country that started under Trump I but turbocharged under the Biden administration.

Border Patrol’s Northern Exposure and Overall Apprehensions

Things were a little bit slower for agents at the Canadian border, though the apprehension figures rose slightly there compared to July.

Last month, Northern border agents apprehended 586 illegal entrants, a 6 percent rise compared to July, but less than a quarter of the apprehensions there in August 2024 (2,431).

Nearly all of those apprehensions (556, or 95 percent) involved single adults, and curiously a third (185) involved aliens from Mexico and 21 percent (115) from the Northern Triangle. Just 34 were Canadian nationals.

Overall, Border Patrol agents at all three borders (Southwest, Northern, and Coastal) made just fewer than 8,100 apprehensions (an average of just over 261 per day), a 31-percent increase compared to July (6,172) but just 13.3 percent of the total in August 2024 (60,684).

“On a Typical Day”

To appreciate how low the current overall apprehension numbers are, however, click on the link for a CBP web page captioned “On a Typical Day in Fiscal Year 2024, CBP…”.

It reveals that on a typical day last fiscal year, Border Patrol agents made “4,267 nationwide enforcement encounters between ports of entry” nationwide — meaning more illegal entrants were nabbed in any average two-day period in FY 2024 than in all of last month.

Or consider a separate web page, “On a Typical Day in Fiscal Year 2016, CBP…”.

It shows that Border Patrol’s daily apprehension average 10 years ago — the last full fiscal year of the Obama administration, was 1,140. That was considered a “good” year by pre-Trump standards and yet Border Patrol apprehensions then were running at more than four times the rate of last month.

It almost seems like CBP is trolling prior administrations with its continued support of those web pages, but it’s likely just typical government entropy. Regardless, they tell a tale that supports the current DHS’s border efforts.

“A Conversation with U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks”

Even then, the latest border apprehension figures for August may actually be lower than they appear.

Note that the slowdown in illegal entrants at the border has freed CBP to assign Border Patrol agents to the interior, where they are assisting ICE’s deportation efforts.

For example, the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia reported on June 24 that, “Agents from Border Patrol’s Yuma, Arizona, sector” were “assisting ICE officers” in the City of Brotherly Love, and on September 16, El Centro (Calif.) Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino tweeted “Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived! Operation At Large is here to continue the mission we started in Los Angeles—to make the city safer by targeting and arresting criminal illegal aliens.”

On Friday, the Center hosted its latest “Newsmaker” interview, “A Conversation with U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks”, during which my colleague, Mark Krikorian, asked the chief about the rise in apprehensions in August.

Interestingly, Banks indicated that “some of the [apprehension] numbers” reflect Border Patrol arrests in assistance of ICE in interior locations like Chicago or Los Angeles.

“We’ve gone back to correct our systems”, the chief explained, “to make sure our systems are identifying the difference between an at-entry [apprehension] versus someone who has been domiciled in this country.”

In any event, Banks noted: “The very slight increase we saw in August, we’re already seeing that number decrease again”.

Smugglers Haven’t Gone Away

Border chaos under Biden is a key reason why there is a Trump II administration. If current trends continue, FY 2025 will be the most secure year in history at the U.S.-Mexico line, and DHS will achieve complete “operational control” of our borders in FY 2026. That’s a big “if”, however, because the smugglers, while quiet for now, haven’t gone away.