EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Fewer than 8,400 individuals crossed into the U.S. illegally from Mexico last February, but 1 in 4 did so along a stretch of the border running from Hudspeth County, Texas, to the New Mexico-Arizona state line.
U.S. Customs and Border Report data released this week shows Border Patrol agents apprehended 2,110 migrants in the El Paso Sector in 28 days in February. That’s an average of 75 a day.
That compares to the 4,871 apprehended in the sector last January, which were far fewer than the 6,397 encounters in San Diego, which led the nation in apprehensions that month. San Diego reported only 1,650 encounters during February.
A federal official on Tuesday told Border Report that smuggling activity in the desert of New Mexico kept the El Paso Sector numbers out of step with the rest of the border.
A Border Report search of the federal court docket for the District of New Mexico showed a slew of pending cases for conspiracy and transportation of illegal aliens going back to last year. New cases have been filed in March, including one on March 3 involving the arrest of three men and apprehension of 17 migrants at a stash house in Las Cruces.
Nationwide encounters fell during the last six months of the Biden administration as pathways for asylum-seekers narrowed with the implementation of an online appointments system. The numbers continued to drop during the first six weeks of the Trump administration, which saw more border agents and new Department of Defense troops assigned to border security duties.
Also, Mexican law enforcement officials have been patrolling portions of the border between El Paso and Juarez that were popular migrant crossing venues in the past. A video obtained by Border Report news partner ProVideo shows state officers patrolling across the border from Sunland Park, New Mexico.
The federal official said encounters have dropped further since February. The daily average for March has been 50 apprehensions, he said. None of those migrants were released on parole either to nonprofits or through street releases, according to data published Tuesday in the City of El Paso’s Migrant Dashboard.