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The number of Central American migrants fleeing across the United States border continues to soar, despite a concerted deportation campaign in recent months, as official statistic show that authorities have detained more undocumented migrants traveling in families detained in the current fiscal year than in 2015.
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According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 44,524 members of a “family unit” from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico were detained between October 2015 and May 2016, surpassing the 2015 statistic of 39,838.
If apprehensions of members of families of migrants continues at this rate over the next four months, the 2016 statistic could also be almost on par with the 68,445 family member apprehensions in 2014 at the peak of the Central American migrant crisis.
CBP defines the category of “family unit” detentions as the number of migrants “apprehended with a family member by the U.S. Border Patrol.”
So far in 2016, the majority of such detentions have been of Central American family members. Salvadorans alone have accounted for 15,878 of the detentions, up by more than a third compared to last year.
Not all migrants apprehended are necessarily transferred to detention centers, migrant rights advocates told EFE news agency.
Meanwhile, numbers of unaccompanied Central American minors apprehended at the border also continue to soar with 2016 on track to surpass 2015 numbers. According to CBP data, 38,566 unaccompanied migrants under 17 years old were detained between October 2015 and May 2016, compared to 39,970 in 2015 and 68,541 in 2014.
All together, apprehensions of migrants for all categories have hit 264,192 in the first eight months of fiscal year 2016, nearly 80 percent of the 2015 total of 331,333 and over half of the 2014 total.
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Human and migrant rights advocacy groups have criticized the lack of consistency in border policing and processing of migrants, saying that some are being detained to send a message to potential border crossers to tell them to stay out. The United States has also deported about 3,100 Central Americans per month since late last year.
Meanwhile, CBP appointed a new Chief of U.S. Border Patrol this week, former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Mark Morgan, who as a non-border control agent, is considered a CBP “outsider.”
Southern Border Communities Coalition representative, Christian Ramirez said in a statement that the appointment “signals a recognition of the urgent need to make a clean break from the culture of violence and impunity that has plagued the U.S. Border Patrol.”
The Obama administration has come under fire in recent years, particularly in the midst of the 2014 migrant crisis, for its mass detention of a major influx of child migrants arriving at U.S. borders, despite the government's longstanding promises of immigration reform.
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