Millions of Migrants: US Border Spike Hits New 2M Record, Many Fleeing These 3 Socialist Nightmares

A new record highlights the crisis at the U.S. southern border where officials have recorded more than 2 million encounters with migrants so far this fiscal year. 

Reportedly, a growing number of migrants are escaping from socialist nightmares in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, fleeing economic devastation and political repression.

"Failing communist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are driving a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent increase in encounters at the southwest U.S. border," said Chris Magnus, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which oversees the Border Patrol.

39% Increase in Migrant Stops

Authorities stopped migrants 2.15 million times from October through August. That's the first time that measure topped two million during the government's fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1. 

It was a 39 percent increase from 1.5 million stops during the same period a year earlier.

Border crossings have been fueled partly by repeat crossers because there are no legal consequences for getting expelled under a pandemic-era rule that denies a right to seek asylum. Even so, the numbers are extraordinarily high.

Migration from Cuba and Nicaragua remained high, according to CBP data:

• Cubans were stopped 19,057 times in August, down slightly from 20,096 times in July but way up from 4,496 in August 2021. 
• Nicaraguans were stopped 11,742 times, down from 12,075 in July but up from 9,979 in August 2021.

Record Number of Venezuelans Seeking Asylum

Venezuelans have now surpassed Guatemalans and Hondurans to become the second-largest nationality after Mexicans among the migrants crossing the U.S. border illegally. 

U.S. authorities stopped Venezuelans 25,349 times in August, up 43% from 17,652 times in July and four times the 6,301 stops recorded in August 2021.

Nearly 7 of every 10 stops of Venezuelans crossing illegally during August occurred in the Border Patrol's Del Rio, Texas, sector, making it the busiest of the agency's nine sectors on the Mexican border. Migrants were stopped more than 52,000 times in the Del Rio area, many of them around the city of Eagle Pass, leaving El Paso a distant second with about 29,000 stops.

The trend of more Venezuelans is reflected in daily headlines. As CBN News reported, the group of 50 migrants that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew to the upscale Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard were all Venezuelan, as were five of the six people whom U.S. authorities found drowned in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass in early September. The sixth was from Nicaragua.

The 50 migrants sent to Martha's Vineyard represent less than one-tenth of 1% of the nearly 5 million illegal immigrants believed to have crossed the southern border since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, according to Fox News. 

NY Post Editorial Board Responds to Critics of Abbott and DeSantis 

The crisis is now creating internal conflicts as border states are sending migrants north to self-proclaimed "sanctuary cities." Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and DeSantis, both Republicans, have sent buses or planes filled with migrants to these cities. The governors have said the tactic is designed to get the Biden administration to finally react to the crisis at the border by enacting policies to control it. 

Critics charge the governors are using people as "political pawns." 

But in an op-ed published Sept. 15, The New York Post Editorial Board wrote that critics of DeSantis's move "ignored the ugly fact that sending migrants far and wide across the country is what Biden has been doing for months."

"That is: It's Team Biden that's routinely treating migrants like 'cargo,' waving them across our border with implicit promises of eventual de facto citizenship and zero regard for their health and safety," the board continued. 

"If 50 migrants arriving in Martha's Vineyard is a disaster, where were these pseudo-humanitarians when the feds released nearly a thousand this past week in El Paso?" the board asked. 

"Remember: It's not only the migrants who suffer. El Paso has been utterly overwhelmed by massive inflows, around 1,300 a day at the city's section of the border. Biden's heartless policies are on track to wave in more than 2 million this fiscal year," the op-ed continued. 

"And smaller border towns like tiny Eagle Pass, Texas, have been crushed by wave after wave of Biden-invited migrants straining their human services to the breaking point," the board noted. 

"That's the catastrophe. DeSantis is just joining other GOP govs in forcing the media to cover the results. No wonder open-borders liberals are so outraged: They're being shown for what they are," the board concluded. 

It was also the third straight month that fewer immigrants came from Mexico and Central America's Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Those nationalities have dominated the mix for decades.

Migrants Will Continue to Come as Long as They Believe They Will Be Allowed to Stay

While no single reason can be pinpointed, it is extremely challenging for the U.S. to expel migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba under the pandemic rule known as Title 42, which U.S. officials invoke to deny people a chance at seeking asylum on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. Title 42 gives the Border Patrol the power to expel some migrants without giving them the chance to ask for asylum. But the U.S. can only expel migrants that either their own countries or Mexico will take, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

U.S. relations with Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are strained, making it difficult to send migrants home. This has led the Biden administration to allow those migrants to stay in the country while they seek asylum. As CBN News has reported, despite the dangers of the long journey, it's likely these migrants will keep coming as long as they believe they will be allowed to stay in the United States. 

In addition to the illegal border crossings, nationwide drug seizures, including cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, and marijuana were up 1.4 percent in August compared to July, according to the CBP. 

***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***