By Steve Neavling
As migrant crossings continue to hit record numbers, CBP has nowhere near the resources needed to protect the border.
“We are not equipped to deal with this,” Scott Carmon, a Border Patrol watch commander, told The New York Times. “It’s a humanitarian disaster.”
Every day, thousands of migrants from all over the globe are arriving at the border.
Last week, an average of more than 10,000 migrants were apprehended at the border a day.
“In terms of migrants per day, December 2023 is bigger than any average we have ever seen,” Adam Isacson, a migration expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, said. “Every official who is commenting on it, on all levels, says they’re near or past the breaking point.”
In hopes of curtailing the migration numbers, Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken and other senior officials traveled to Mexico this week. On Wednesday, Blinken met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and they jointly agreed to create a working group to address the surge.
“We had a very good, very important meeting,” Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena told reporters outside the national palace, The Washington Post reports.
In the first 11 months of 2023, nearly 3 million migrants crossed into the U.S., a number that surpasses the population of 17 states, according to data from CBP.
