According to statistics released by the U.S. Border Patrol yesterday, nearly 10,000 unaccompanied minors and families were arrested last month along the U.S.-Mexico border, a 52 percent jump from last year.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said these numbers were a "surprising uptick" and a "concern" for the administration. There has been no explanation for this increase but Earnest noted that these numbers conflict with the usual reduction of border crossings during August.
The yearly total of arrests is down 50 percent from last year's border surge but the report shows an increase in arrests starting in July. Last month the Border Patrol arrested 9,790 unaccompanied minors and families, a startling increase from the 6,424 in August 2014.
Adam Isacson, a border expert and senior analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, said historically crossings start to decline after springtime highs. Yet, the 4,632 unaccompanied minors arrested at the border last month is a record high for the month of August, since their records began in 2009. Isacson said this could be the start of another surge or just "a flash in the pan." However, he confirms that "we are going up the trend line."
After being caught off guard by last years' border surge family detention centers were created to house thousands of people as they awaited deportation hearings. These centers were established in part because 70 percent of families that were ordered to report back to the immigration authorities failed to return. Last month a California federal judge ruled that these detention centers violate the Flores Settlement Agreement and ordered the centers closed and the families being held there released.
The government has filed an appeal and Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson, said the detention centers are currently being converted into processing centers.
Read more at The Republic.
