Grand Canyon Times

Last week, the CBP Acting Commissioner Troy A. Miller issued a press release to announce the lowest migrant encounters along the Southwest border in two years. This milestone is credited to enforcement under Title 8 and the facilitation of lawful pathways.

"Our sustained efforts to enforce consequences under our longstanding Title 8 authorities, combined with expanding access to lawful pathways and processes, have driven the number of migrant encounters along the Southwest border to their lowest levels in more than two years. We will remain vigilant," CBP Acting Commissioner Troy A. Miller.

According to an official press release issued by CBP on July 18, June witnessed a remarkable decline in migrant encounters following the lifting of the Title 42 public health order. The U.S. Border Patrol recorded approximately ninty nine thousand encounters between ports of entry along the Southwest border, indicating a significant 42% decrease from May 2023. The total number of Southwest border encounters in June, including those at ports of entry with or without a CBP OneTM appointment, stood at 144,607, marking a substantial 30% decrease from the previous month. These figures represent the lowest monthly Southwest border encounter numbers since February 2021.

The CBP OneTM mobile application has proven to be a vital tool in incentivizing migrants to use lawful and orderly processes while discouraging illegal crossings between ports of entry. In June, more than 38,000 individuals who scheduled appointments through the CBP OneTM app were successfully processed at a point of entry. Since its introduction in January, the appointment scheduling CBP OneTM has facilitated over 170,000 individuals in successfully scheduling appointments to present at a port of entry. The top nationalities among those who have scheduled appointments are Haitian, Mexican, and Venezuelan. Furthermore, in an effort to expand capacity and enhance efficiency, CBP announced the availability of more appointments for noncitizens through the CBP OneTM app, increasing the daily limit from 1,250 to 1,450 appointments starting July 1.

In contrast, data from NumbersUSA reveals that prior to June, the southern border experienced 16 consecutive months with total encounters of illegal aliens exceeding 200,000. June's numbers, totaling 211,575 encounters, were more than double the total from June 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, and nearly four times the number of encounters in June 2018.

With the lifting of Title 42, all migrants are now processed under Title 8, which imposes a minimum five-year bar to reentry for those who have been removed, according to the DHS website.