It’s Compassionate to Oppose Illegal Immigration. Here’s Why.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced on Monday that the agency had 221,303 encounters with illegal aliens along the Southern Border in March 2022.

This constituted a 33% increase compared to the prior month.

Seventy six percent (169,062) of all encounters were of single adults.

Additionally, there were 14,167 encounters of unaccompanied children (UCs) in March, an 18% increase compared to the 11,984 encounters of UCs in February.

As The Daily Citizen previously reported, immigration officials expect the conditions along our Southern Border to continue to deteriorate in the coming months.

This is largely because of the administration’s decision to end Title 42, a measure put in place by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in March 2020 which permitted immigration officials to quickly expel illegal immigrants due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over 1.6 million illegal immigrants have been sent back under the Title 42 policy since its implementation.

As a result of the policy’s suspension, U.S. officials are currently preparing for a “worse-case scenario of up to 18,000 migrants being taken into custody each day” this summer.

CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said the agency believes it will “see an increase in encounters after the CDC’s Title 42 Public Health Order is terminated on May 23rd.”

“CBP is surging personnel and resources to the border, increasing processing capacity, securing more ground and air transportation, and increasing medical supplies, food, water, and other resources to ensure a humane environment for those being processed,” Commissioner Magnus added.

In FY 2021 (October 2020 through September 2021), CBP apprehended more illegal immigrants than ever before in history, totaling 1,734,686 encounters.

Now, every month of FY 2022 has exceeded the corresponding month of FY 2021. This means FY 2022, in terms of CBP encounters along the Southern Border, is well on its way to being the year with the highest number of encounters in American history.

In just the first half of this fiscal year, through March 2022, CBP has encountered 1,060,954 illegal aliens along the Southern Border, on track to easily surpass two million this year.

Photo Credit: U.S. CBP

Opponents of illegal immigration are often portrayed in the mainstream media as racist, bigoted, uncaring individuals who are opposed to people seeking a better life in the United States.

But this ignores the perils faced by illegal immigrants, especially women and children, who try to make the journey north.

On August 25, 2015, former President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson warned Central American families not to “gamble with your child’s life” by sending their children north.

He told the story of Jonathan, an 11-year-old boy who “left his native El Salvador and headed north because his family wanted him to have a better life.”

“But, by the time Jonathan reached the Texas border in the blistering summer heat, he was dehydrated and exhausted. Our Border Patrol agents found Jonathan and tried to save him, but it was too late. Jonathan was pronounced dead in a nearby Texas hospital,” Johnson said.

He continued: “Before smuggling women and children across our border, the Coyotes are forcing them to spend days in ‘stash houses.’ These women and children, who have paid the Coyotes thousands of dollars, are then held by the Coyotes against their will with little food and water.  We are told many women are sexually abused by the smugglers.”

“Do not fall prey to criminal smugglers who regard children as commodities,” Johnson warned.

According to Amnesty International, as many as 60% of migrant women and girls are raped on the journey north.

And a 2018 government study found that along their journey, children face the risks of “exploitation, violence and death.”

“It is estimated that between 75-80% of newly arriving unaccompanied children are victims of human trafficking, as they travel into the U.S. with smugglers who then sell them into forced labor or prostitution,” the study said.

These are heartbreaking statistics and demonstrate why deterring illegal immigration primarily helps and protects illegal immigrants the most.

Please join us in praying for a long-term solution to our nation’s border crisis and that illegal immigrants seeking to enter the United States may be protected from the drug cartels.

To learn more about the crisis along our Southern Border and the administration’s decision to end Title 42, click here. And to learn more about the dangers that unaccompanied children face along their journey to the United States, click here.

You can also read Focus on the Family President Jim Daly’s response to the ongoing border crisis here.

Related articles:

Burgeoning Border Crisis Spirals Out of Control, Officials Fear ‘Mass Migration Event’

In 2021, Encounters of Unaccompanied Children Along Southern Border Increased Dramatically

Photo from Shutterstock.