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Why is illegal border crossing at an 'all time low'?

How do we know how many illegals made it into the country without being apprehended at the border?

We don't.

Do you have an opinion on the question?
 
Is it at an all time low? Or is it being counted and reported different for propaganda purposes? Like when Obama was claiming all time highs in deportations, by counting the catch and releases as deportation.

All the numbers I've seen do show it decreasing overall. There were ups and downs.
 


Got any ideas? And if Mexico figured it out, so can other countries. Why is the US responsible to figure it out for them.
 


Personally, I don't consider the number 396,579 that was apprehended in 2018 (not including of course those not caught) a low by any means. But it is a lower number than previous years. Add that to the 12 million illegals currently living in the US and the numbers are staggering.

Add any amount to that number is too high.
 

Great sad song. Thanks for posting.

Brought back memories of sad visits to Laredo detention centers to see asylum seekers caught while crossing. Outside of town, you could see people on the other side, waiting for nightfall to swim across.
 

I would say that spending billions and billions on a wall to stop this hypothetical 1% would be akin to a small town with little crime building a police force the size of the NYPD. It would certainly reduce the crime even more, but it would not be considered a wise allocation of resources.
 
If crossings are at an all-time low, where is the crisis Trump keeps blathering on about?
 
Great sad song. Thanks for posting.

Brought back memories of sad visits to Laredo detention centers to see asylum seekers caught while crossing. Outside of town, you could see people on the other side, waiting for nightfall to swim across.

That song contains no claim of asylum whatsoever. Asylum seekers do not "get caught" - they voluntarily seek CPB personnel to make their asylum claim.
 

"Simply enforcing current laws on immigration"

I mean goddamn that's some 1984-level propaganda right there.
 

The assertion that a physical border barrier is no longer a good idea fails to explain why funds have been appropriated to build and maintain them. I suggest a simple experiment be tried - remove one mile of the physical border barriers between Tijuana and San Diego and carefully observe the result.
 

I suggest an experiment that can be tried immediately but it requires media cooperation.
When anyone says Walls don't work they have to be asked "Why not?"
If they say because experts say so you know they're lying.
Actually if they come up with anything they'd be lying.
 

Physical barriers alone do not work but folks, especially criminals, are basically lazy and do not wish to expend the time and effort to defeat them. Making the effort to breach a physical barrier also establishes criminal intent - the "I just went after my stray child/puppy defense" is doomed.
 
That song contains no claim of asylum whatsoever. Asylum seekers do not "get caught" - they voluntarily seek CPB personnel to make their asylum claim.

Sorry you misunderstood me. I had traveled to Laredo to visit a former Guatemalan military guy who refused to become a death squad member and was seeking asylum after being nabbed by the INS. While there, I saw would be migrants on the opposite river bank. And many asylum seekers did get caught, expressed a fear to their captors, and used an asylum claim as a defense against forcible return to their countries of origin.

Been out of the loop for a while and some things have changed. What is CPB?
 

Of course walls act as some sort of deterrent. That’s why it’s strange that Trump and the GOP didn’t build any in the past two years.
 

Customs and Border Protection.
 

There's a whole menu of what needs to be done. The Wall is just one of the choices.
The problem with most of the meals on the menu is that the people responsible for cooking those meals don't want to cook 'em because the people who'd have to eat them don't want to.
And when there's a new chef they could always create a new menu that eliminates all those old favorites.
A cooked Wall would be a perennial menu favorite for kids and adults alike even if not on the new menu.

Ya think I've beaten the menu metaphor to death?
 
Of course walls act as some sort of deterrent. That’s why it’s strange that Trump and the GOP didn’t build any in the past two years.

That is a good point, for sure, since that was before they became "immoral" - yet also before Trump stated that he demanded that they be funded by deficit spending instead of "being paid for by Mexico".
 
Customs and Border Protection.

Thanks. But migrants are not required to present their claims in order to obtain protection. Given Trump’s attempt to re-write asylum laws, they might be better off laying low til the courts overturn his rulings, which I think is likely.
 

Actually you are lying. Anyone who says a full-length border wall is cost effective is lying
 
Actually you are lying. Anyone who says a full-length border wall is cost effective is lying

"Cost effective"?
It would be but I just said "effective".
 

For the sake of clarity, I use the official statistics and graphs that are normally combined: apprehensions and others seeking entry at the border. Neither of these figures represent those who are successful in their border entry (e.g. typically those caught then apply for asylum and have gained entry anyway, being either detained in the US or caught and released). However this figure has served as a prior benchmark in that it is thought 1/2 of those attempting do make it across; which would be 500,000 a year.

The only reason the numbers are not as bad as in many prior years is two-fold: first, the great recession sent many home and second, Mexico has emptied a lot of poorest class to the US already. Now Central American immigration has become the dominate regional source of southwest border illegals and their numbers are growing (especially family units using asylum loopholes).
 
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