Border securityCBP reports 2012 increase in arrests on the border

Arrests at border increase by 13 percent // Source: taringa.net

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) chief Michael Fisher told a Senate committee last week that arrests of illegal border crossers have gone up 13 percent this year.

TheHill reports that CBP show  that arrests on the border increased from 340,000 in fiscal 2011  to 364,000 in fiscal 2012.

Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) says the increase could be the result of the possible passage of the Senate immigration bill and the federal budget cuts, which have changed the methods the CBP uses to patrol the border.

“The economy has something to do with people’s desire to come across the border,” McCain told members of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the state of the border’s security. “And part of it is that word has gotten south that sequestration has reduced our ability to surveil, and there may be comprehensive immigration reform.”

The increase in arrests last year breaks a 7-year trend of decreasing arrests along the border. In 2005 the CBP reported almost 1.2 million illegal immigrants arrested trying to cross the border. Since then the numbers have steadily gone down. .

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and other officials have said that the drop in numbers was an indication that border security is improving, and this argument helped the cause of immigration reform legislation. The bipartisan Senate group that drafted the immigration overhaul legislation has set goals, or benchmarks, for border security before the path to citizenship begins.

DHS assistant secretary for policy David Heyman told theHill that he is confident the Senate bill, which includes provisions on employment verification and worksite enforcement, will make border security stronger.

“If you put all of that together, our ability to have better control of the borders will also improve,” Heyman told said. “We’re confident that it’s the right formula.”