More than 600,000 people entered the United States illegally without being detained by border agents during fiscal year 2023, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas revealed on Tuesday.
Mayorkas revealed the figure during a national security hearing on Capitol Hill, where he insisted that leaks have been a problem at the border for “decades.”
“The escape phenomenon is something that has been a challenge for the Department of Homeland Security for decades,” the Biden-appointed secretary said.
Surprisingly, he added: “In fact, it is a powerful example of a failed immigration system.”
Customs and Border Protection figures released since the financial year ending September 30 showed that 900,000 migrants had been allowed to enter the country legally along the southwest border under humanitarian parole, allowing them to file asylum claims. .
When the number of migrants is added to the number of escapees, you get 1.5 million migrants who have crossed the border in the last year, many of whom are now straining services in major metropolitan cities, including New York, Chicago , Denver and Washington DC.
About 900,000 immigrants were allowed to enter the United States after being apprehended by the US Border Patrol in 2023.James Keivom
During Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.) said the total number of people who ran away alone since Biden took office in 2021 was 1.7 million people, a statistic supported by the findings of the Republican Homeland Security Committee and published. last week.
Since the new year began, that number has not decreased, and CBP Chief Jason Owens sounded the alarm, saying more than 1,000 people a day are still crossing the borders.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent searches for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border on May 12, 2023 in El Paso, Texas. fake images
“These are individuals whose identities and purpose we do not know,” Chief Owens wrote in X.
“That’s why it’s necessary for all Border Patrol agents to be out in the field and patrolling,” he said.
Since fiscal year 2024 began, Owens estimated that more than 18,000 people have already arrived in the United States between October 1 and 16.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted Monday that escapes have always been a border problem. AFP via Getty Images
As migrants continue to cross the southern border, Arizona has been particularly hard hit in recent weeks.
Over the weekend, Border Patrol agents in the Tuscon sector of Pima County detained about 2,600 immigrants, bringing the total number of people detained there to 3,200, according to the Arizona Daily Star.
Pima County spokesman Mark Evans said they expected to see between 800 and 900 immigrants released daily while they were processed.
US Senator Ron Johnson during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on threats to the United States, on Capitol Hill.REUTERS
“Those are the kind of numbers we were seeing in late September and early October when we were in crisis,” he said.
Meanwhile, a group of about 5,000 migrants bound for the U.S. border set out on foot from Tapachula, one of Mexico’s southernmost cities near the border with Guatemala, on Monday, heading toward the border.
The group had been waiting in the city after requesting transit documents there, but left after not receiving them.
Migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border wait to be transported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. James Keivom
At the front of the column, the migrants carried a white cross painted with drops of red blood and the phrase “Containment is my death, liberation is life” written in Spanish.
On Tuesday they arrived in Huehuetán, after walking about 16 kilometers.
With mail cables.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn