Federal officials say they have released more than 107,000 migrant families and children into the United States since December 21, and claim that arrests of people illegally present in the country are falling as resources are diverted to the border.
At the end of last year, mainstream media were rife with stories about how President Trump was wrong about the border because, actually, statistics show that illegal immigration levels are at "historic lows." A headline from
a Politico article in November is representative of the genre: "Immigration crisis? The stats tell a different story."
The story the media thinks the stats tell is that there is no border crisis because the total number of apprehensions along the border peaked in 2000 at about 1.6 million and current illegal immigration levels are about what they were in the 1970s.
But this convoluted talking point is deeply misleading.
Border apprehensions are in fact on the rise, on pace to reach their highest levels since 2008. What's more, the "historic lows" line doesn't account for the different types of illegal immigration or the very different policies in place to deal with distinctive categories of migrants. Given the reality of what's happening on the border today, the "historic lows" talking point is almost meaningless.
For example, of those 1.6 million illegal immigrants arrested in 2000, the vast majority were Mexican adults traveling alone, and were quickly deported in accordance with federal law. Historically, most of the illegal immigration along the southern border has consisted of Mexican adults. As recently as 2012,
90 percent of apprehensions along the southern border were single adults. Today, that's changed. Family units and unaccompanied minors now make up 60 percent of all apprehensions along the southern border.
The change is important because we don't treat single adults the same way we treat families and minors traveling alone.
Instead of detaining or deporting them-as we do with adults-federal immigration officials are releasing families and children into the United States with orders to appear before an immigration judge, a process that can take years.
Comment: More on the scandal and the SPLC: