Tony Diver
US Editor
01 October 2024 1:24am
Migrant border crossings are now at their lowest level in four years, in a boost to Kamala Harris ahead of November’s presidential election.
US Border Patrol recorded around 54,000 encounters along the southern US border in September, according to federal data obtained by CNN.
The figures show that the overall number of crossings has declined for six straight months, which includes the period since Joe Biden implemented an executive order that bans some illegal migrants from claiming asylum after crossing into Mexico.
The ban, which was implemented in June after Republicans blocked a bill to impose tighter border controls, sets a daily limit of 2,500 crossings before asylum services are no longer able to accept new applicants with the border not reopening until the figures are below 1,500 for a week.
Crossings on the southern US border, especially into Texas and Arizona, had previously reached record levels. The latest figures show the lowest number of crossings since 2020.
Illegal migration has become a significant dividing line between Ms Harris and Donald Trump, who has pledged to immediately deport up to a million people if he wins the presidency on Nov 5.
Ms Harris, who was once asked by Mr Biden to handle border control, has struggled to convince voters she has a plan to bring the numbers down. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have talked extensively about border control on the campaign trail.
The figures came as the Biden administration said it was making asylum restrictions at the southern border tougher again.
The new rules, which toughen the June restrictions, say the number of migrants trying to cross the border must be lower than 1,500 for more than a month before new asylum applications will be accepted.
The government is also counting all children towards that number for the first time. Previously, only Mexican children were included in the figures. The new rules come into force on Tuesday.
On Friday, Ms Harris visited the border for the first time since she began her campaign when Mr Biden dropped out of the race in July.
In a speech from Douglas, Arizona, she blamed Trump for the high number of crossings, pointing to his party’s decision to block Mr Biden’s border plan earlier in the year.
“He prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” she said.
“And the American people deserve a president who cares more about border security than playing political games and their personal political future.”
Polling shows that Trump is trusted much more by the public on border security than Ms Harris, who has been forced to repeatedly deny that she supports “open border” policies.
The Trump campaign has used specific examples of migrants committing violent crimes as evidence that the number of crossings is making the country more dangerous.
One example of so-called “migrant crime” is Trump’s claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating cats and dogs” owned by local residents.
On Monday evening, the Texas Department of Public Safety announced it had encountered a group of more than 230 illegal migrants at Eagle Pass, a small border town that has become a national symbol of the immigration debate.
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