Illegal immigration ticked up in February, with the Department of Homeland Security reporting more than 256,000 encounters with unauthorized migrants.
That’s about 13,000 more than in January, though still well below December’s unprecedented 371,000. It marked the worst February on record.
Nearly 190,000 of the encounters came at the southern border, and about 141,000 of those were Border Patrol arrests. Among them were 11 more arrests of migrants whose identities were found on the government’s terrorism watchlist.
The rest of the southern border encounters were unauthorized migrants showing up at crossings and demanding to be let in. More than 42,000 of those sought entry under a legally iffy “parole” program created by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to try to take pressure off Border Patrol agents.
Under that program, known as the CBPOne App, migrants can schedule their arrivals at the border and be allowed in. The government also runs another parole program that allows up to 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to preschedule arrivals at airports inside the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection said the high numbers for both programs show the administration’s plans are working and “noncitizens will follow an orderly process when one is available.”
Republicans said that however they come, the migrants in question are not authorized under the law for entry and shouldn’t be allowed.
“Despite Secretary Mayorkas finally admitting that there is a border crisis after three years of lying to Congress and the American people, he continues to incentivize unlawful entry into the country with his mass catch-and-release and mass-parole programs,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, Tennessee Republican.
Since Mr. Mayorkas created the program for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, it has brought in more than 386,000 migrants who lack a visa to be here.
“This is part of the administration’s strategy to combine expanded lawful pathways with stronger consequences to reduce irregular migration and [has] kept hundreds of thousands of people from migrating irregularly,” CBP said.
The numbers are the first to be released after the defeat last month of a bipartisan Senate bill that sought to stiffen some immigration enforcement, adding more agents and detention beds, while setting new rules on the use of parole. That legislation was stopped by a bipartisan filibuster, with Democratic opponents calling the proposal too harsh and Republicans saying it didn’t actually solve the problem.
President Biden has called for Congress to revive the bill, but there has been little appetite for that on Capitol Hill.
Instead, Congress wrote a new spending bill that expands Border Patrol agents and migrant detention beds but lacks any of the policy changes.