Illegal Immigration Levels May Reach Half a Million over Next Three Months
by JOHN BINDER
BREITBART.COM
4 Apr 2019
Illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border could more than double from current rates in the next three months, alone, as President Trump postpones action on the issue for a year.
On Thursday, Trump backed away from previous threats he would shut down the southern border, now giving Mexico a year to clamp down on illegal immigration and drug trafficking before he takes any action against the country.
While the southern border remains overrun, the crisis could reach nearly unprecedented levels between April and June, Princeton Policy researcher Steven Kopits tells Breitbart News.
According to Kopits, over the course of three months, the Trump administration could see anywhere between 450,000 to 500,000 border crossings, a rate of illegal immigration at the southern border that is double the rates between the last three months — when about 195,000 arrests were made between December 2018 and February 2019.
Arrests of border crossers and illegal aliens by federal immigration officials have increasingly resulted in those nationals ultimately being released into the interior of the country, as the Trump administration expanded the Catch and Release policy this year.
“A half million border apprehensions in the next three months would not surprise me,” Kopits told Breitbart News.
“I think the current situation is likely unsustainable and will likely result in a political crisis somewhere before the middle of July,” Kopits continued.
Kopits’ projection is that the U.S. could see potentially 130,000 arrests at the southern border in April, 170,000 arrests in May, and 150,000 arrests in June for a total of about 450,000 arrests in just three months.
To put that rate of illegal immigration into perspective, there were less than 400,000 arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border in the entire Fiscal Year of 2018. Roughly 450,000 to 500,000 border arrests in the next three months would surpass the yearly totals of illegal immigration in Fiscal Years 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.
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