Border Busts Top 50,000 -- Again; Families +435%, Unaccompanied Minors +329%

U.S. border agents made more than 50,000 arrests in May for the third month in a row, the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday, an indication that escalating enforcement tactics by the Trump administration - including separating migrant parents from their children - has not had an immediate deterrent effect. DHS took 51,912 migrants into custody in May, more than three times the number detained in May 2017, a period when illegal immigration plunged following Donald Trump's inauguration. Behind the scenes, the jump in border arrests this spring has inflamed Trump and sent his aides scrambling to find ways to bring the numbers down. In April, Trump ordered National Guard troops to deploy along the border, and Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a "zero tolerance" approach that threatens anyone who enters the U.S. illegally with criminal prosecution and jail. A breakdown of the May statistics show Border Patrol agents made 40,344 arrests in May, and U.S. customs officers determined another 11,568 migrants to be "inadmissible," typically after taking them into custody at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico divide. DHS statistics show the number of families who attempted to cross the border illegally increased by 435 percent last month in comparison to May 2017. The number of unaccompanied minors rose 329 percent...The vast majority continue to come across the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, but so far this year a greater portion have been taken into custody in southern Arizona, suggesting that migration flows may be shifting west once more...MORE