The nation’s besieged southern border set a record for February migrant encounters with 189,922 attempted crossings as officials brace for an expected spring surge, according to new Customs and Border Patrol data.
The figure eclipses the prior February record of 166,010 encounters, set in 2022 and 156,000 during the same month last year.
The tallies include Border Patrol apprehensions and encounters at official ports of entry — but does not include an estimate of the number of migrants who cross the southern border undetected.
A total of 70 migrants on the FBI terror watchlist have attempted to enter the country illegally thus far this fiscal year which started on Oct. 1, including 11 in February.
When the Northern Border is included, there were a total of 256,000 border encounters in February, up by roughly 13,000 from the prior month.
The figure was still well below December’s record setting 371,000 nationwide migrant encounters.
Of the roughly 190,000 encounters at the southern border, about 140,000 stemmed from Border Patrol arrests.
The remaining group consisted of migrants who voluntarily approached crossings and asked for asylum.
About 40,000 of them asserted their eligibility under CBPOne App program, which allows migrants to enter at previously scheduled times.
A separate Biden Administration initiative is easing entry into the country for undocumented migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Nearly 400,000 migrants from those nations have already entered the country, many of them to Florida.