Illegal border crossings ticked up in August, still near record lows

The number of illegal immigrants detected crossing the southern border rose in August, though the numbers are still far below any month under President Biden.

Border Patrol agents nabbed 6,321 people along the U.S.-Mexico boundary last month, up from 4,596 in July — an increase of 38%.

Even with that increase, it’s still the third-best number on record, and well below the more than 58,000 people whom agents apprehended in August 2024 under Mr. Biden.

Customs and Border Protection officials also said August marked the fourth straight month that the Border Patrol didn’t have to use “parole,” a form of catch-and-release, on any illegal immigrants. By contrast, the Biden administration paroled more than 10,000 migrants in August 2024.

Nationwide, CBP reported encountering 26,191 unauthorized migrants. That includes the Border Patrol arrests at the northern and southern boundaries as well as migrants who lack visas but show up at official border crossings or airports and seaports demanding entry.

That figure is up from about 24,600 the previous month.

The most jarring statistic has been a massive increase in the number of migrants who are flagged in the government’s terrorist watchlist.

CBP officers manning the ports of entry along the southern border identified 825 crossers whose identities were found in the Terrorism Screening Dataset in August, shattering previous records.

And Border Patrol agents arrested nine people who snuck across the southern border whose names were on the watchlist.

Experts said the issue is one of reclassification. After many Mexican cartels were designated as foreign terrorist organizations this spring, people who previously had not shown up in records as terrorists now do.

Still, the numbers challenge the claim made by FBI Director Kash Patel in testimony to Congress this week, where he said the government had seen “almost zero” known or suspected terrorists at the southern border under Mr. Trump.

Mr. Patel said the bigger danger was the northern border with Canada, which he said was “expansive” and less protected.

“We need more focus on the northern border to stop known or suspected terrorists from coming in from places like China, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan,” he said.