Border Patrol: El Paso led nation in migrant encounters in 1st quarter of fiscal year 2023
El Paso saw its highest-ever level of migrant encounters in the first three months of fiscal 2023 since the U.S. government erected a border fence, according to U.S. Border Patrol.
The Border Patrol's El Paso Sector — which includes part of West Texas and all of New Mexico — reported 162,603 encounters with migrants from October through December. The agency apprehended or received more than 50,000 migrants each of those three months, a nearly 40-year record, according to the agency.
The quarterly total was more than three times higher than the same period a year ago, when the Border Patrol reported 49,000 encounters total in the first quarter of fiscal 2022.
The federal fiscal year starts Oct. 1.
The numbers bear out what El Pasoans witnessed during the fall as thousands of migrants crossed the Rio Grande day and night, many of them lining up to seek asylum or refuge in the United States.
The surge drove the city and county ‒ historically reluctant to get involved in federal immigration matters ‒ to take extraordinary measures to manage the humanitarian crisis that ensued. The city, and then the county, opened temporary migrant welcome centers to help asylum-seekers make travel plans out of town and meet their immediate needs for food, water and shelter.
At the height of the crisis in early December, the Border Patrol reported encountering a daily average of 2,500 people per day, including asylum-seekers and other migrants. Daily encounters have dropped to roughly 1,100, according to the city's online Migrant Situational Awareness Dashboard.
Unlike previous migration flows when the number of families or unaccompanied children encountered might rise, or the number of single adults might jump, the first quarter of 2023 saw large increases in every demographic.
The Border Patrol's El Paso Sector reported encountering 105,036 single adults over the three-month period, up from 37,088 during the same period a year earlier.
Encounters of family units climbed sharply as well, to 49,508 from 6,844. The number of unaccompanied children grew 59% year over year to 8,059 from 5,077.
“The first quarter of fiscal year 2023 demonstrated the complexity of the Southwest border, with therecent migrant influx and the challenges that our agents and migrants face during these times,”El Paso Sector acting Chief Peter Jaquez said in a statement issued Monday.
El Paso led the nation with the highest total migrant encounters in the first quarter of 20 Border Patrol sectors.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Border Patrol: El Paso led nation in migrant encounters in Q1 of 2023
