At the border, agents are also seeing an increase in illegal crossers. Border Patrol agents held a briefing Aug. 3 at their Rio Grande Valley Sector Headquarters to inform local entities and stakeholders of a recent uptick in unaccompanied minors and families from Central America coming across from Mexico illegally.
Recently, 750 people were apprehended in one day, according to Border Patrol spokesman Omar Zamora. He said they are seeing an average of 250 to 300 people more than in the recent months. He attributes this recent uptick to the summer months and said it is nowhere close to the nearly 1,500 daily apprehensions they were seeing at the same time last year.
“It’s not alarming for us. It’s something that we expected to see, but at the same time it is something that we are going to keep a pulse on,” Zamora said. “If we do see an increase, we want to make sure we don’t get caught off guard.”
Since last year’s surge, Border Patrol has increased their capacity to process immigrants in McAllen and focused on keeping law enforcement and other key players informed, Zamora said.
This increase comes months after immigration officials announced policy changes causing immigrants to be released faster after ICE began issuing them ankle-monitoring bracelets instead of sending them to detentions centers, according to recent reports.
In late July, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee ordered the release of all children from immigrant family detention centers after ruling it violated parts of a 1997 settlement from another case barring immigrant children from being held in secure facilities.