The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in May broke all Department of Homeland Security (DHS) records, a record last set in March of 2000.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stats announced Wednesday, border authorities encountered 239,416 migrants during the month at the nation’s southern border.
May’s encounters surpassed April’s record of 234,088 migrants encountered. The Biden administration continues to break all migration records since DHS began recording southwest border encounters.
Roughly 25% encountered at the southern border in May had already been encountered in the last year by border authorities.
Of those encountered in May, 69% were single adults, according to CBP. Sadly, the number of unaccompanied children rose to 14,699, a 21% increase from the month prior.
Only 42% of migrants were expelled under the Title 42 pandemic emergency policy. The rest were processed under standard immigration rules, which under the Biden administration means being released into communities to await eventual court proceedings.
All categories of migrants showed increases for the month.
Customs and Border Protection calculated nearly 12,000 people were detained in its facilities on any given day during the month, beating March’s previous high.
And the number of unique encounters, those migrants who haven’t tried to cross in the last 12 months, surged 15% in May, to 177,793.
Under the Trump administration’s border strategy, the CBP focused on measures to deter migrants and asylum-seekers from coming to the U.S.
The Biden administration has adopted a more general approach, including assistance to migrant-sending countries and faster border processing.
The Biden administration has also launched a program designed to speed up asylum processing by funneling more claims to DHS asylum officers instead of the immigration court system. The plan intends to reduce the average four-year wait for a decision because of a backlog of 1.7 million pending cases.
Biden continues to break records monthly, with border encounters on track to reach 2 million in his first full year.
Border Patrol estimates that hundreds of thousands more migrants pass through without interception. At the same time, the administration releases most of those it catches, even quietly resettling migrants across the country.