Erin Doherty
U.S. border authorities arrested 210,000 migrants in March seeking to cross the border with Mexico, Reuters reports.
Driving the news: The March total — the highest monthly total in two decades — is a 24% increase from the same month in 2021, when 169,000 migrants were arrested at the border.
- More than half of the migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border this year have been from the traditional sending countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Reuters notes.
- But migrants are also increasingly arriving from further countries, including Ukraine and Russia.
- Nearly 1,000 Ukrainians have shown up at the U.S.-Mexico border so far this month — a jump from the 272 encounters in February, Axios’ Stef Kight reports.
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.
The big picture: The new numbers come as U.S. officials are bracing for a massive influx of more than 170,000 migrants at the Mexico border after Title 42, the pandemic-era public health policy used to rapidly expel migrants at the border, is set to expire next month.
- The government has prepared a contingency plan, preparing for a worst-case scenario of up to 18,000 migrants being taken into custody each day, Homeland Security officials said last month.
Source: axios.com