Border arrests fall more than 40% in three weeks

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By Lilith Foster-Collins

News Reporter

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Arrests for illegal border crossings dropped more than 40% during the three weeks asylum processing has been suspended, the Homeland Security Department has said.

Border Patrol's 7-day daily average arrests have fallen below 2,400, the lowest number since 17 January 2021, according to Homeland Security.

President Joe Biden suspended asylum processing with an executive order to "gain control of the border" on June 5.

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Border arrests had decreased 25% as of last week according to Biden, and have now fallen further.

Biden speaks at event

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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was scheduled to address reporters on Wednesday in Tucson, Arizona, which was the busiest corridor for illegal crossings during much of the last year.

Authorities say the 7-day daily average of arrests in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector was just under 600 on Tuesday, down from just under 1,200 on June 2.

Under the suspension, anyone who expresses an intention to seek asylum is screened by a U.S. asylum officer but at a higher standard than currently used.

People who pass the screening can pursue more limited forms of humanitarian protection, including the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

The suspension takes effect when daily arrests are above 2,500, and normal processing will resume two weeks after daily arrests fall to 1,500 or less.

The last time numbers fell below that threshold was July 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A coalition of immigrant advocacy groups have sued the Biden administration over the directive.

The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others on behalf of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

The groups claim that the asylum ban differs little from a similar move by the Trump administration that was blocked by the courts.

Advocates argue suspending asylum for migrants who do not arrive at a designated port of entry violates existing federal immigration law.

"We're already seeing a system, a program, that is irredeemably defunct," Krystle Cartagena, managing attorney at RAICES, a Texas-based organization providing legal services to migrants, told Newsweek.

"It is simply incapable of providing folks with meaningful access to counsel," Cartagena continued.

"So on a day-to-day [basis], we are already struggling with that, with the daily due process violations and abrogation of asylum-seekers' rights to seek the assistance of counsel. This new rule will see an expansion of that."

The Biden administration has argued the directive differs from Trump's immigration policies because it includes several exemptions for humanitarian reasons, including victims of human trafficking, unaccompanied minors and those with severe medical emergencies.

In the lawsuit, the immigrant advocacy groups argue that exceptions are "extremely limited."

A White House spokesperson told Newsweek on June 13 that the administration was left with no choice but to enact the executive order.

"The Biden-Harris Administration took these actions, within its authorities, because border encounters remain too high and after Congressional Republicans twice voted against a historic bipartisan border security agreement that would have provided critical resources, statutory changes, and additional personnel to the border," the spokesperson said.

Following the executive order, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, who was at the White House for its signing, told Newsweek that further action was needed to better fund resources along the southwest border.

"We still need more funding for more judges, we need more funding for transportation, food, lodging—and so this is really only the tip of the iceberg," the mayor said.

RAICES filed the lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., along with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center (Las Americas), the ACLU, the National Immigrant Justice Center, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Jenner & Block LLP, ACLU of the District of Columbia, and Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP).