Homeland Security on Friday touted a drop in arrests at the southern border in January, with Border Patrol agents making the fewest arrests of any month so far in the Biden administration.
But the 146,942 illegal immigrants nabbed by agents were still nearly double the rate of last year, and marked the worst January since 2000.
Customs and Border Protection said drug seizures along the U.S.-Mexico boundary also were down, suggesting the total flow is declining. But seizures of fentanyl, the deadly synthetic that’s believed to be killing tens of thousands of Americans each year, surged 57% in January compared with December.
“CBP continues to take important steps to improve our ability to interdict narcotics and keep dangerous drugs off our streets,” Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a statement announcing the border numbers.
He also highlighted the 14% drop in “migratory flows.”
There were several encouraging signs amid the numbers.
The 8,633 unaccompanied juveniles nabbed by Border Patrol agents marked the lowest figure since last January, as did the 30,215 migrants arrested while traveling as families.
But the number of single adults from Mexico surged in January.
A typical Mexican migrant is paying between $8,000 and $9,000 to be smuggled into the U.S. right now, according to The Washington Times’ database of border smuggling cases.
Migrants from Central America, the other key sending region, usually pay slightly more, with $10,000 being a typical payment.
In addition to the illegal immigrants nabbed by Border Patrol agents, CBP officers at ports of entry encountered 8,777 more migrants trying to enter without permission.
That amounts to a total of 153,941 unauthorized migrant encounters.
Of those, 78,486 were turned back under a pandemic health emergency order that the Biden administration inherited from the Trump administration and has kept in place.
Of the remainder, more than 46,000 were caught and released by CBP.
More than 16,000 others were transferred from CBP to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and then released.