Federal agents nabbed nearly 50,000 illegal immigrants along the southern border in August, marking the worst month in a year as the clampdown that had accompanied the coronavirus pandemic begins to fade.
The flow was almost all single adults who, unlike the families that surged into the U.S. last year, are not looking to get caught. The rise in numbers suggests even more are getting away — a worrying thought for security experts amid the pandemic.
“Even a global pandemic will not stop them,” Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan said in an update from the border in Texas.
Almost all of the new arrivals who are caught are immediately expelled across the border under a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order during the pandemic.
But many of them are immediately turning around and trying again.
Mr. Morgan said 11 CBP personnel have died from contracting COVID-19 while on duty, and more than 1,000 people in his agency are COVID-positive right now.
He described one rescue Border Patrol agents made this week where an illegal immigrant trying to sneak deeper into the U.S. by jumping a train ended up in a grain hopper, dehydrated and unconscious. An agent had to lower himself down to make the rescue and physically hoist the migrant up through the roof.
“And guess what? He tested positive for COVID,” Mr. Morgan said.
The agent who made the rescue, as well as several others, are now in quarantine.
Of the 49,594 migrants nabbed, 46,864 were caught sneaking in between ports of entry by Border Patrol agents and 2,730 were encountered coming through border crossings by CBP officers.
Only about 11% were unaccompanied children or families.
