A record number of migrants were arrested at the border in May

Despite continued asylum restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrested a record 239,000 migrants there in May 2022, according to agency statistics.

So far in 2022, border officials made 1.5 million arrests - just 200,000 shy of end-of-year totals for 2021, which had reached an all-time high of 1.7 million.

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Of border encounters in fiscal year 2022, 752,000 were expelled under Title 42, a Trump-era public health order used to quickly turn away border crossers — in some cases flying them back to their home countries — without access to the asylum system.

“Current restrictions at the U.S. border have not changed: single adults and families encountered at the Southwest Border will continue to be expelled, where appropriate, under Title 42,” Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a written statement.

Among the migrants who are released into the U.S. with pending immigration cases after being detained at the border, Houston is a major destination.

“We’ve seen people arriving to Houston by Greyhound buses. The majority of them either meet up with their family network in Houston or they would make onward travel to another part of the country,” said Zenobia Lai, executive director of the Houston Immigration Legal Services Collaborative.

Lai said there is a small number of migrants who may not have a family connection in Houston, who are helped by local organizers to find temporary housing locally.

Just over half of May’s border encounters occurred along the Texas border with Mexico — of those, nearly 20 percent (44,000 encounters) occurred in the Del Rio sector, making it yet another busy month for a what has historically been a quiet section of the border.

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"I think there has been this perception of Del Rio and of the Mexican cities that border Del Rio, that it is one of the safer places to cross the border in terms of criminal organizations on the Mexican side," said Jessica Bolter of the Migration Policy Institute, in an interview earlier this spring. Del Rio came to national attention last year when thousands of people, including many Haitians, gathered there seeking to cross into the United States.

Upticks in migration from Nicaragua, Colombia, Haiti, Russia, India and Turkey helped drive May’s record arrests.

Some 19,000 Colombians were apprehended at the border in May 2022, and more 71,000 this fiscal year — more than 10 times the number of Colombian border crossings in fiscal year 2021. The majority are not coming through the dangerous passage known as Darien Gap — and are likely coming in on flights from Mexico, which doesn't require a visa ahead of time from Colombians. Colombia is suffering from high unemployment and economic inequality, exacerbated by the pandemic, while very few Colombians believe the instability in the country will diminish. The job and income losses suffered by households wiped off a decade of progress in reducing poverty, according to a World Bank report on the impact of the COVID pandemic.

Also, more than 10,000 Haitians arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in May. Many were likely en route to the U.S. in 2021, but decided to stay in Mexico temporarily after the U.S. started flying large number of Haitians back to Haiti in September.

Still, more than 3,000 of the Haitians at the border were expelled back to Haiti in May under the pandemic policy Title 42. The Biden administration had planned to lift the policy in late May, but was temporarily blocked by a federal judge due to a lawsuit led by GOP-controlled states.

“Our message to those who would try and gain illegal entry to the United States remains the same — don’t make the dangerous journey only to be sent back,” said Magnus.

Among the more than 230,000 May arrests, nearly 15,000 were children or teens traveling without a guardian.

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Central Americans from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador made up one-fifth of the month’s border crossings with some 50,000 encounters, fewer than in 2021.

Authorities made some 77,000 arrests of Mexican migrants in May, contributing to the more than half a million border arrests of Mexicans since the beginning of the 2022 fiscal year, which began last September.

Border arrest numbers provided by Customs and Border Patrol do not reflect the total number of people arriving at the border; repeat border crossers are counted each time they attempt to cross and are apprehended by officials.

Since the Title 42 expulsion policy began, there has been an increase in the number of repeat crossings recorded.

A quarter of May 2022 southern border encounters involved people who had crossed within the previous 12 months, compared to an average one-year re-enounter rate of 15 percent for fiscal years 2014-2019.

elizabeth.trovall@chron.com