Crisis at the Southern border by-the-numbers

Immigrants are risking their lives at a record rate as the Southern border becomes a worldwide escape route.

The U.S. Border Patrol reported 213,534 encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in July, the highest monthly total in more than two decades, Pew Research and updated figures show.

August was almost as bad with September numbers due in soon, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection “Southwest Land Border Encounters” tracker. Here are key takeaways:

• 208,887 migrant border encounters in August (50,014 last year.)
• 305 “Accompanied Minors” in July; 405 in August. (68 and 101, respectively, last year.)
• 83,495 “Individuals in a Family Unit” in July; 86,487 in August. (2,05 and 2,715 last year and 3,894 in September, the only data in so far for last month.)

In one of the most startling figures, the border tracker states the number of “Unaccompanied Children” has soared by a sobering 655.6% year-over-year for July and it appears to be holding steady:

• 18,958 encounters with lone children in July (2,509 last year.)
• 18,847 in August (3,103 in 2020.)

“You will have 1 million people at the border,” an anti-corruption activist in Guatemala was quoted as saying in the LA Times this week, warning the poor are now heading north.