Border apprehensions in Rio Grande Valley have already surpassed all of last year

The Texas Tribune reported Monday that the number of border apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley in fiscal year 2019, which is just past half over, have exceeded the number for all of the previous fiscal year.

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From October, when the federal government’s fiscal year began, through Sunday, more than 164,000 migrants have been apprehended in the sector, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. During the entire 2018 fiscal year, the sector reported 162,262 apprehensions…

The Border Patrol has reported similar increases along the entire southwest border.

CNN visited a processing center in McAllen, Texas last month and described it as “crammed” with more migrants than it was designed to hold:

The facility, designed to hold 1,500, was crammed with 2,200 migrants detained at the border. That’s nearly double the number who were there last summer…

“We are way over capacity,” said a Border Patrol official while touring the facility in McAllen with CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert Perez.

Since then, things have gotten worse. A new plan to deal with immigration is set to be rolled out by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller (with input from the president) in the next few days:

Kushner said at Time magazine’s Time 100 Summit that he’s put together “a very detailed proposal” that encompasses three major themes: improving border security, moving toward a so-called merit-based system and maintaining “our country’s humanitarian values.”

“I do believe that the president’s position on immigration has been maybe defined by his opponents by what he’s against as opposed to what he’s for,” Kushner said.

The president has been involved in crafting the proposal, Kushner said.

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Frankly, it’s hard to imagine any issue on which there is less likelihood of agreement across party lines. Trump has staked out his position since before he was elected (build the wall) and for just as long Democrats have been working to make sure he fails to achieve it. With a divided government in Congress and the next presidential election approaching, Democrats have no motivation to change their approach. Trump has already offered to do something on Dreamers in exchange for the wall and been rejected. So it seems extremely unlikely that a compromise proposal coming out of the White House is going to change the current dynamic. It’s much more likely that this plan will be considered dead on arrival by Democrats.

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