Washington, June 23 (RHC)-- The number of Central American migrants fleeing across the United States border continues to soar, despite a concerted deportation campaign in recent months, as official statistic show that authorities have detained more undocumented migrants traveling in families detained in the current fiscal year than in 2015.
According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 44,524 members of a “family unit” from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico were detained between October 2015 and May 2016, surpassing the 2015 statistic of 39,838.
If apprehensions of members of families of migrants continues at this rate over the next four months, the 2016 statistic could also be almost on par with the 68,445 family member apprehensions in 2014 at the peak of the Central American migrant crisis.
CBP defines the category of “family unit” detentions as the number of migrants “apprehended with a family member by the U.S. Border Patrol.” So far in 2016, the majority of such detentions have been of Central American family members. Salvadorans alone have accounted for 15,878 of the detentions, up by more than a third compared to last year.
