U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents encountered nearly 172,000 migrants at the border in March, up 71 percent from February. The increase included a record number of unaccompanied minors.
Any effort to address what's happening on the border has to start with root causes in Central America, says Cecilia Muñoz, who was head of the Domestic Policy Council in the Obama administration.
The figures are preliminary and don't include what Border Patrol agents call "got aways." Officials say it was the highest monthly total since at least 2006.
Officials are trying to shrink the timetable for many asylum cases from "years to months." That could benefit people with legitimate asylum claims and discourage some unauthorized migration.
Two-thirds of Americans approve of how Biden is handling the pandemic, but only a third approves of how he's dealing with immigration. An increasing number also say they will get vaccinated.
As President Biden stated last week, crossings often rise during the early months of the year as the weather improves. But the number of unaccompanied children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021 is considerably higher than in recent years.
Some areas on the border in Mexico are refusing to take back unauthorized migrants expelled by the United States, so U.S. authorities are flying them to where Mexican officials will accept them.
President Joe Biden on Thursday misstated the reality at the U.S.-Mexico border when he asserted that "nothing has changed" when it comes to the number of children coming to the United States since his predecessor, Donald Trump, was in office. The numbers are up since Biden became president on Jan. 20.
Resettling a single refugee family requires a huge effort, and after four years of neglect under the Trump administration, rebuilding the system will be difficult.
A new report from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce analyzed immigrants’ contributions to the state economy. From health care to agriculture, Minnesota industries wouldn’t be as robust without immigrants, the numbers show.
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