After a Wednesday meeting with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Tucson Sector, Gov. Doug Ducey (R) explained to KTAR what he learned.
“One real eye-opening thing that we learned yesterday is that the cartels are using social media to pick up folks that have been trafficked over the border,” Ducey reportedly said. “They’re actually offering American citizens cash on the spot if they’ll deliver people from border drop-off points, like an illegal Uber into the state.”
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Border officials encountered the third-highest number of migrants at the southern border on record, reaching more than 1.7 million apprehensions, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
Border officials reported 192,000 encounters with migrants attempting to illegally enter the U.S. through the southwest border in September, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. A record high of more than 213,500 migrants were apprehended in July and another 209,800 were encountered in August.
“CBP encounters along the Southwest border declined in September from the prior month, and a majority of noncitizens encountered were expelled under Title 42,” Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement. “The men and women of CBP continued to rise admirably to the challenge, despite the strain associated with operating during a global pandemic that has claimed far too many lives among our frontline personnel.”
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According to a Fox News report, Arizona is seeing a larger influx of illegal alien crossings than any other state.
In September, Yuma Sector Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents were encountering 600 illegal aliens daily, which he said is a 2000 percent increase from last year.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from the Tucson Sector Wednesday announced that it had seized a massive quantity of the extremely lethal drug fentanyl.
“U.S. Border Patrol agents working the Interstate 19 Immigration Checkpoint near Amado, Arizona, seized over 50 pounds of suspected fentanyl and arrested the driver of the vehicle Monday morning,” a CBP press release said.
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Border Patrol agents could be fired if they’re not vaccinated for COVID-19 by the end of November, two active agents and a union official told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday.
Border officials have until Nov. 22 to get vaccinated or face three levels of discipline including “verbal counseling, one – 14 days without pay and removal from service,” a senior Border Patrol agent told the DCNF. The agent spoke on the condition of anonymity since they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter.
“So it’s official now. They are implementing disciplinary action for the unvaccinated,” the agent told the DCNF.
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Border Patrol agents requested additional federal aid in Del Rio, Texas, months before thousands of migrants set up a temporary camp under an international bridge and overwhelmed immigration officials, CNN Politics reported Thursday.
Border officials reported an increase in migrants crossing the Rio Grande River earlier in the summer but didn’t know more than 14,000 migrants would end up setting up camp under the bridge, according to CNN Politics. On June 1, the union representing Del Rio Border Patrol agents asked for additional technology resources to help agents quickly process large groups of migrants in the field before sending them to a station.
“This way, we can at least get part of the process finished before they even get to the station instead of wasting that time,” said Jon Afinsen, president of the National Border Patrol Council in Del Rio, in an email exchange with regional Border Patrol management, CNN Politics reported.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) is not backing down Friday after it turned out that the viral narrative that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was “whipping” Haitian migrants at the border to turned out to be false.
“These are human rights abuses, plain and simple. Cruel, inhumane, and a violation of domestic and international law. This needs a course correction and the issuance of a clear directive on how to humanely process asylums seekers at our border,” Omar said on Twitter when the scandal first emerged.
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MCALLEN, Texas — Customs and Border Protection agents are so overwhelmed with the number of migrants arriving at the southern border they’re having a hard time verifying whether some illegal migrants are minors or adults, agents told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials are supposed to conduct extensive interviews with migrants they suspect of lying about their age, a senior agent told the DCNF. The agents spoke to the DCNF on the condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak on the matter.
“In the past, our intelligence would interview these subjects until eventually getting them to admit they had falsely claimed to be minors. But now with the sheer volume of people coming in and people that we have to process and move, that part of the equation is just a hindrance and would create a bottleneck,” the senior CBP agent told the DCNF. “In other words, our processing machine has now switched gears to quantity over quality. Sad.”
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Border officials encountered nearly 190,000 migrants at the southern border in June, a 5% increase over May’s numbers, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Friday.
There was a significant increase in the number of re-encounters in June, with 34% of individuals having at least one prior encounter in the past 12 months, compared to the average one-year re-encounter rate of 14% for Fiscal Years 2014-2019, the agency said in a statement.
“The large number of expulsions during the pandemic has contributed to a larger-than-usual number of migrants making multiple border crossing attempts,” CBP said. “Which means that total encounters somewhat overstate the number of unique individuals arriving at the border.”
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Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday the southern border is “more dangerous than it’s ever been” after the Biden administration reversed most of Trump’s immigration policies, Fox News reported.
The Biden administration ended Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program on June 1 and is eyeing an end to public health order Title 42 that allows border officials to rapidly expel most migrants to Mexico at the end of July, Axios reported June 20. Biden also said he would stop construction on the border wall, prompting Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to announce plans for the state to begin construction on its own wall, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
“There has never been a border so secure as the southern border that we had, and now it’s opened up,” Trump said, according to Fox News. “Now we have an open, really dangerous, border. More dangerous than it’s ever been in the history of our country, and we better go back fast.”
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House Democrats proposed a new spending bill that would cut funding to immigration enforcement agencies and rescind funds allocated to the border wall.
The bill, which makes appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), allocates $14.1 billion in net funding to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), $927 million less than the previous year’s budget, according to a press release from the House Committee on Appropriations. The bill also rescinds $2.1 billion in funds from last year intended to go towards the border wall, and provides Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with $1.55 million less than the previous fiscal year.
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Federal authorities have seized significantly more fentanyl along the U.S.-Mexican border in Arizona and California since October than they did in the entire 2020 fiscal year.
Since October, authorities have seized 7.000 pounds of the drug, compared to just 4,500 pounds in the entire last fiscal year, according to data from Customs and Boarder Protection. The reasoning, according to authorities, is simply supply and demand.
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Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott will step down after more than 29 years with Customs and Border Protection, he announced Wednesday.
Scott will remain in his position for around 60 days as the agency transitions, he said in a private Facebook post. A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shared a screenshot of Scott’s Facebook message with the Daily Caller News Foundation and said the agency would make a formal announcement.
“I received my 3R letter today. For those not familiar, that is Federal government slang for the letter issued to (senior executive staff) level employees informing them of a directed reassignment,” Scott said in the post. “The recipient has 3 options – relocate, resign or retire. No rationale or reason is required, nor is it disciplinary.”
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The surge in illegal immigration at the southern border continues to worsen, May numbers show, as the Biden administration takes more criticism for its handling of the issue.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection released new data on the crisis at the southern border, showing the federal law enforcement agency encountered 180,034 people attempting to illegally enter the country last month.
May’s numbers were a 1% increase from the previous month, but illegal immigration since Biden took office has soared.
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Thousands of migrants ordered to remain in Mexico as their asylum cases were processed were returned to the country indefinitely despite the Biden administration admitting most of the remaining cases into the U.S., the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
President Joe Biden ended former President Donald Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) requiring migrants to “Remain in Mexico” and has admitted thousands of the 26,000 migrants with active cases into the U.S., the AP reported. Judges have terminated proceedings in nearly 6,700 MPP cases, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
“Things have changed under the Biden administration and we’ve seen a little over 8,000 individuals previously in MPP have their cases transferred out of an MPP court, which suggests that they have been allowed into the US under the more standard asylum processing procedures,” Syracuse University Assistant Research Professor Dr. Austin Kocher told the Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday.
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An increasing number of migrants from India, Romania, Haiti and Cuba are attempting to enter the U.S. through the southern border, Axios reported Wednesday.
Migrants are reportedly flying to Central America since U.S. courts are backlogged with asylum cases preventing them from living or working in the country as their case is processed, according to Axios. Border officials encountered over 33,000 migrants from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador attempting to enter the U.S. in April, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized 6,494 pounds of fentanyl in the first four months of 2021. This is much higher than the 4,776 pounds seized in all of 2020. While it is impressive that CBP has removed this much of the deadly drug from the market, the majority of the fentanyl brought into the U.S. is not seized, and increasing amounts of fentanyl are reaching Americans. The drug, a synthetic opioid, was invented in 1960 for medical applications and is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. In recent years, Mexico-based criminal organizations have been manufacturing the highly addictive drug, often mixed with other substances, and distributing it throughout the United States.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported Tuesday that 178,622 people attempted to illegally enter America’s southern border in April, a two-decade high.
Officials said single adults comprised a majority of encounters.
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Today, Agricultural Specialists from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized a shipment of 750 unfertilized Avian Eggs at the port of Memphis, Tennessee, according to a statement released by CBP.
China is currently embroiled in an epidemic involving Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and Newcastle Disease.
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Border officials in south Texas consistently face exposure to COVID-19, don’t have the resources to do their job and are regularly called in for overtime shifts, two active agents told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Many Customs and Border Protection (CBP) field agents work 50-hour weeks and now are required to report for 10-hour long overtime shifts even after they are exposed to migrants who test positive for COVID-19, an active CBP agent told the DCNF. The agents spoke on the condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak with members of the media.
“CBP gives us a job, but they seem more concerned with getting the job done than with the actual agents,” an active agent told the DCNF. “They want the mission to succeed. We don’t have the resources we need to do our jobs but we make do with what we have. We don’t have enough agents, transport, technology, or aircraft to help us out.”
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Illegal migrants are repeatedly held outside overnight, sometimes in the rain and cold, without cover for them or law enforcement officials working to process them after they arrive in the Rio Grande Valley sector of southern Texas.
The Daily Caller News Foundation saw hundreds of illegal migrants held overnight where a handful of law enforcement officials, including a few Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents worked on gathering biographical data while waiting hours for transportation near La Joya, Texas, on March 24 and March 27. CBP officials repeatedly refused to confirm or deny the situation in the Rio Grande Valley.
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More than 172,000 migrants were encountered at the southern border in March, according to Customs and Border Protection.
Officials apprehended nearly 19,000 unaccompanied migrant minors, around 53,600 family units and over 99,000 single adults, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Encounters were up 71% in March from February.
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Border officials won’t say how many illegal immigrants are caught and released without set court dates, though nearly 25,000 were issued Notices to Appear in immigration court in the first two months of 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection.
Border officials issued 24,726 Notices to Appear to migrants encountered in January and February, of those a10,028 migrants were released and 14,698 migrants were detained, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It’s unclear how many illegal migrants were encountered and released without court dates.
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After reports surfaced Tuesday that the Biden administration was planning to continue construction on former president Donald Trump’s border wall, a Minnesota congresswoman took to Twitter to voice her displeasure.
“It’s shameful and unacceptable for [President Biden] to continue the construction of Trump’s xenophobic and racist wall,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN-05) said.
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RIO GRANDE VALLEY — The overcrowded Customs and Border Protection facility holding migrants in Donna, Texas, was not designed for long-term detention, National Border Patrol Council spokesman Chris Cabrera told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is holding migrants in overcrowded cells constructed from clear plastic curtains that contain a toilet, a water fountain and concrete benches, Cabrera told the DCNF on an exclusive tour near the border. Migrants are being held for long periods of time in a facility that was intended for short-term detention, Cabrera added.
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Customs and Border Protection is detaining as many as 9,000 migrants daily and over half of them are unaccompanied minors and families, a senior U.S. Border Patrol official said Friday.
Around 6,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended Thursday including 1,900 unaccompanied migrant minors and families who were processed under Title 8, according to the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) senior official. Title 42 is still used to expel most single migrant adults and U.S. officials are working with other countries to identify the migrants coming into the U.S., the official said.
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The Biden administration ignored career immigration officials’ warnings of an impending surge in the number of migrants arriving at the southern border, The Washington Post reported.
The administration has repeatedly refused to refer to the situation as a crisis, despite a seeming inability to curb the increasing flow of migrants, the Post reported. The administration’s mixed messaging, which often appeals to liberal activists, has hampered efforts to halt the influx of migrants at the southern border, according to the Post.
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Under the administration of Joe Biden, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has begun releasing entire families of illegal aliens back into the U.S. from their custody without setting a date for them to appear before an immigration court, as reported by Breitbart.
Breitbart’s Randy Clark, himself a veteran of the Border Patrol, said that CBP has sent notices to border patrol agents and other immigration enforcement authorities that families are to be released without a formal “Notice to Appear.” Two anonymous officials seemed to confirm Clark’s account.
“This is insane,” one official said. “It is another pull factor that will overwhelm us. We are creating an entirely different class of aliens we will have to deal with years from now. We will never find most of these aliens once they are released.”
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Since October, four terrorists who are on the FBI’s terror watchlist have been arrested trying to sneak across the southern border, as reported by Fox News.
The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed the news to Congress on Tuesday, revealing that three of the detained terrorists were from Yemen, while the fourth is from Serbia. This is down slightly from the fiscal year 2018, where six members on the terror watchlist, from Yemen and Bangladesh, were arrested at the border.
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Law enforcement in Cincinnati intercepted a creatively designed ploy to smuggle drugs into the country, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) press release.
“On February 13, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in Cincinnati intercepted smuggled narcotics in a shipment of cereal originating from South America,” the release said. “The shipment contained about 44 pounds of cocaine coated corn flakes, which could have a street value of up to $2,822,400.”
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Eleven Iranian migrants were arrested on Monday after crossing the border illegally from Mexico into Arizona, as reported by Breitbart.
The group of illegals, confirmed to consist of six men and five women, was stopped in Yuma County, Arizona by the Yuma Sector Border Patrol. After being confirmed as Iranian citizens, they were taken to the Yuma Station for processing and questioning. The group included five adult women, two young boys, and four adult men.
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Customs and Border Protection seized nearly half a million pounds of illegal narcotics at the border in 2020 using new screening technology, agency officials announced Thursday.
Over half of the narcotics found last year, or around 470,000 pounds, were discovered through so-called non-intrusive inspection technology, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The agency seized a total of 808,522 pounds of illegal narcotics in 2020.
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Several agencies are participating in the U.S. Secret Service’s security protections around the inauguration in Washington, D.C., including the FBI and Customs and Border Protection.
The Metropolitan Police Department and the National Guard will join the FBI and Customs and Border Protection to participate in security efforts surrounding President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. FBI officials are investigating a substantial number of “concerning” comments online about potential events on and leading up to inauguration day, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a briefing on Thursday.
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Officials announced the seizure of liquid methamphetamine hidden in a gas tank, more than 800 pounds of marijuana, nearly 15 pounds of fentanyl and over $37 million worth of methamphetamine at the southern border over the weekend, Customs and Border Protection announced Monday.
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A pilot program to collect DNA samples from individuals in Customs and Border Protection custody will be fully implemented on Dec. 31, officials announced Thursday.
The pilot program began in January of this year and was given three years to meet the legal requirements to implement national collection, according to CBP. The program was expanded in monthly phases and is on track to reach nationwide operation capacity by the end of this year.
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Over 20 illegal immigrants, including some with prior deportations, criminal histories, and gang affiliations, were arrested within a 24-hour period near Laredo, Texas, officials announced Thursday.
The arrests were part of a “troubling trend” of agents detaining large groups of illegal immigrants, including finding detainees with significant criminal histories, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Over the past 10 days, three illegal immigrants with prior sexual offense convictions were apprehended, the CBP said.
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Over 100 illegal immigrants were found at three separate stash houses and detained over the span of a week near Laredo, Texas, border officials announced.
The illegal immigrants received medical screenings before they were processed as none were wearing personal protective equipment when officials searched the residences, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
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A makeshift wooden vessel carrying two men from the Dominican Republic was spotted and intercepted three miles off the coast of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents Thursday morning.
The men were traveling in a “yola” type vessel with a “significant amount of weapons and ammo,” a CBP spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Two men were arrested and the vessel was seized.
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The Trump administration is extending an authority that allows immigration officers to immediately return illegal entrants along the U.S.-Mexico border for as long as it deems fit.
While the White House has chosen to renew an international agreement which blocks all non-essential traffic on its northern and southern borders, it has chosen to allow a specific health order to remain in place until the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decides the COVID-19 crisis has waned.
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An Indian national apprehended by a Border Patrol agent on Thursday was soon discovered to be the first individual in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody to carry the novel coronavirus.
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The head of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) credited President Donald Trump for addressing 2019’s border crisis, an action he said has helped mitigate the spread of COVID-19 among the agency and the United States.
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Progress on the border wall between the United States and Mexico has continued unabated, despite a worldwide pandemic that has halted most other functions of daily life.
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Migrant smugglers reportedly posed as border wall construction employees, and one of them shot at a Border Patrol agent following a high-speed chase.
Smugglers on Wednesday entered the U.S. with vehicles, designed to look like pickup trucks involved with border wall construction, carrying numerous illegal aliens, according to a report from the Washington Times. A dangerous encounter took place after Border Patrol agents became suspicious of the pickup trucks and began to follow them.
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Border Patrol agents on Thursday apprehended a 29-year-old Honduran national after he unlawfully entered United States territory via the Arizona-Mexico border.
Rudy Chirinos-Hernandez was arrested by agents patrolling the desert near Sells, Arizona, according to a press release by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Following his apprehension, agents conducted a records check and discovered that Hernandez had been convicted of sexual assault against a minor — a felony offense — in 2012 in Dallas, Texas.
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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials prevented a Chinese national from sneaking undeclared biological materials into the United States in late 2018, roughly one year before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
An unnamed Chinese biologist carrying suspected vials of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) arrived at the Detroit Metro Airport in November 2018, according to an FBI tactical intelligence report obtained by Yahoo News.
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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed that underage minors who unlawfully enter the United States without any parents or guardians are subject to immediate deportation, the latest action in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Trump administration, under orders from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), earlier in March declared that the northern and southern borders would be sealed off to all non-essential traffic as a way to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. While nearly all illegal aliens would be immediately repatriated under the order, CBP originally made an exception for unaccompanied minors.
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Since the Trump administration ordered a shutdown of the U.S.-Mexico border, government officials are reporting a roughly 50% drop in illegal alien apprehensions.
Under orders from the Centers for Disease Control, the Trump administration on Friday declared a lockdown of the southern and northern borders, permitting only the flow of “essential” travel. In that short time, border officials have revealed that they are seeing a huge drop in the flow of illegal aliens.
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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials said its agency, including Border Patrol agents, is following all the necessary steps to combat the coronavirus outbreak in a conference call with reporters Friday.
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While enforcement actions along the U.S. southern border rose for the first time in nine months, the increase is much smaller than the historical average, a consequence that is being attributed to the administration’s immigration policies.
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The majority of asylum applications are being denied in the U.S. immigration court system, supporting a narrative by border hawks that most asylum seekers are lodging bogus claims.
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