Reported immigration numbers suggesting that illegal immigration at the U.S. southern border plummeted to the lowest level in over two years in June are misleading, according to a former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official.
Border Patrol agents recorded roughly 100,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants between ports of entry along the U.S. southern border during the month of June, CBS News reported this week. That total is a steep drop from the roughly 169,000 apprehensions recorded the month prior in May.
That drop-off is largely due to lax parole policies that encourage immigrants to walk through ports of entry, rather than between the ports, according to Lora Ries, director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation. The number also does not take into account known and unknown gotaways that get past border security into the interior of the U.S. without arrest.
The reported numbers “are deceitful. The number of illegal and inadmissible aliens coming into the country is still just as high, but the administration is using a shell game and sending people through ports of entry instead of between ports of entry, and then declaring that an improvement on the border,” Ries,…
