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Illegal Southwest border crossings were down 40% last month, according to just released Customs and Border Protection numbers -- a sign that President Donald Trump's hardline rhetoric and policies on immigration may be having a deterrent effect.
Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly himself announced the month-to-month numbers, statistics that CBP usually quietly posts on its website without fanfare.
According to CBP data, the 40% drop in illegal Southwest border crossings from January to February is far outside normal seasonal trends. Typically, the January to February change is actually an increase of 10% to 20%.
The drop breaks a nearly 20-year trend, as CBP data going back to 2000 shows an uptick in apprehensions every February.
The number of apprehensions and inadmissible individuals presenting at the border was 18,762 people in February, down from 31,578 in January.
It will still take months to figure out if the decrease in apprehensions is an indication of a lasting Trump effect on immigration patterns. Numbers tend to decrease seasonally in the winter and increase into the spring months.
But the sharp downtick after an uptick at the end of the Obama administration could fit the narrative that it takes tough rhetoric on immigration -- backed up by policy -- to get word-of-mouth warnings to undocumented immigrants making the harrowing journey to the border.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/border-crossings-huge-drop-trump-tough-talk/index.html
Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @03:42PM (7 children)
T's bully pulpit is super-charged, and tough talk may work for a while. However, the reality is that there is not enough staff for massive deportations, and training etc. will take years to ramp up, perhaps more than 4. Plus, as families get ripped apart, the "optics" of this will get ugly and political.
The best way to reduce the flow of illegal workers is to audit businesses much more carefully, increase punishment to business owners, and offer rewards for ratting out businesses. Moles can pose as illegals. The business auditors don't even have to touch workers: just fine businesses heavily, and arrest owners who are repeat offenders. This will reduce incentives for illegal crossings as work dries up, but in a more gradual and more family-friendly way.
However, businesses lobby and (legally) bribe heavily to NOT have this done to them.
T is doing it wrong because he's impatient and clueless, and GOP is doing it wrong because they are bribed to do it wrong.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 13 2017, @04:04PM (5 children)
Years? Temporarily repurpose half the military basic training facilities. Let's be conservative and say two months to get the drill sergeants up to speed and a month for each class of thousands of recruits. They could be fully staffed to the wildest dreams of the most extreme border-security pundits in six months.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @05:08PM (3 children)
True, but the idea of the military marching through the city streets asking to see "your papers please" will be one heck of a spectacle that will be hard to get the majority of Congress to support. Although, it's happened to other countries before and thus hard to completely rule out.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 13 2017, @05:27PM (1 child)
You should read the whole sentence. It meant nothing approaching what you responded to.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @08:11PM
And just how exactly do you propose to catch the illegals already in the US? The only logical method seems to be "stop all people fitting a profile and ask for their identification papers". Are you really so blind and dumb to not see this is the only way it could go down? Border agents have jurisdiction 100 miles from the coast, which covers the majority of the US population. This is 100% possible and likely given Trump's rhetoric and the demand to follow through on his deportation of illegals.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 14 2017, @12:21AM
Related enough to bring this to mind:
http://www.theonion.com/article/third-amendment-rights-group-celebrates-another-su-2296 [theonion.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @06:16PM
Yeah, fuck the posse comitatus act!
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday March 14 2017, @12:39AM
I think that another way to reduce the number of people hopping the border might be to address factors which are causing their home countries to be shitty places.
For instance, ending the war on drugs might reduce funding to drug cartels and cause said drug cartels to lose power in Mexico, and a drop in corruption and violent crime.