Illegal crossings at California border reach highest level since 2008. See the numbers

The U.S. Border Patrol stopped more people trying to illegally cross from Mexico to California during the past 12 months than during any other year since 2008, new federal statistics show.

Border Patrol agents encountered almost 202,000 unauthorized immigrants at the Mexico-California border during the 2021 federal fiscal year, which ended on September 30. That’s more than double the number of encounters seen the prior year — and more than quadruple the number from 2017.

The trend was largely repeated across the southwest border. The Border Patrol encountered about 1.7 million people trying to cross into America illegally during the 2021 federal fiscal year, the highest number since at least 1960.

California is not the spot where most immigrants try to illegally cross the border. Far more immigrants last year tried to cross from Mexico into Texas, where the border is not as secure and the cost of living is cheaper.

The number of illegal crossings into California does not come close to matching the numbers seen in the early 1990s, when Border Patrol agents consistently encountered more than 500,000 people each year trying to illegally enter California from Mexico.

About 82% of people trying to illegally cross into California were Mexico nationals, according to Border Patrol statistics. Another 4% came from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The rest were from other countries.

Roughly 85% of those encountered illegally crossing the border were single adults. About 12% were traveling with their families. And about 3% were unaccompanied children.

Many of those trying to cross were quickly expelled from the country due to public health rules related to the pandemic. Because of that, tens of thousands of migrants encountered by the Border Patrol were making their second, third or fourth attempts, and show up several times in the Border Patrol data.

Others were detained in the United States while their cases are processed by the immigration system.

Many attempting to illegally cross the board are fleeing natural disasters, gang violence and continued instability in Central America, Mexico and other parts of the world. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget this year included $105.2 million “to provide support for migrant family arrivals at the Southern California border.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 5:00 AM.