EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The federal government on Friday released 3-week-old numbers reflecting a 58.3% drop in migrant apprehensions in the El Paso region through the first two months of fiscal year 2024.
With the cutoff being November 30, the stats don’t reflect the recent surge that is maintaining U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facilities at twice their stated capacity, nor comments by a West Texas congressman that El Paso is in the middle of yet another migrant crisis.
Friday’s release shows 22,109 migrant apprehensions in the El Paso Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol last October and 22,403 last month. Nationwide, migrant apprehensions were down 8% in October and November compared to the first two months of fiscal year 2022.
On Friday, Tucson Sector Border Patrol Chief John Modlin tweeted his agents have apprehended 19,400 migrants in Eastern Arizona this week alone.
In October 2022, the City of El Paso was still operating a “Welcome Center” for migrants and lobbying with the federal government for $6.1 million in reimbursements. That followed a record surge fueled by the arrival of thousands of Venezuelan asylum-seekers coming across the Rio Grande from Juarez.
Friday’s numbers do reflect the arrival to the region of numerous citizens from countries other than Mexico or the Northern Triangle of Central America. Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended only 6,209 Mexicans in November compared to 10,079 who were neither from Mexico nor from Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador.
The federal government did not explain the delay in the release of November numbers. CBP usually releases operational updates during the second week of the following month.