This year, it's worse – as Border Patrol agents apprehend even more Honduran, Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants claiming asylum. But due to a backlog in the courts, there is even less of a chance they’ll be deported.
"Where the backflow and choke point is occurring is in the immigration judge docket system -- 800,000 on the dockets right now," said former Deputy Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection David Aguilar. "So, that backlog, that inability to basically send these people back, remove them back to their countries of origin, is causing a draw of more of these people coming into the country."
According to the latest CBP figures, agents detained 27,754 unaccompanied minors from Central America in the first six months of the fiscal year, almost double last year's total of 15,616 and just shy of the 2014 record of 28,579.
The numbers for immigrants traveling as families is even higher, with 32,117 apprehended -- almost triple last year's total of 13,913 and well above the 2014 “surge” figure of 19,830.
