Border arrests jump 78 percent in November

Associated Press

SAN DIEGO

Border Patrol arrests in November jumped 78 percent from a year earlier to the highest level in Donald Trump’s presidency, with families and children accounting for a majority for a third-straight month.

The numbers are the latest sign that people who cross the border illegally are increasingly families and children traveling alone, a trend that began several years ago but has accelerated since summer.

The Border Patrol made 25,172 arrests of people who came as families in November, nearly four times the same period last year, parent agency Customs and Border Protection said. There were 5,283 arrests of unaccompanied children, up 33 percent from a year earlier.

Overall, the Border Patrol made 51,856 arrests last month, up from 51,001, or 1 percent, in October and up from 29,085 in the same period of 2017. It was the fourth-straight month-to-month increase.

Trump, who made border wall construction a top funding priority, dispatched 5,600 active-duty troops to the Mexican border in November as a large caravan of Central American migrants moved through Mexico to the border city of Tijuana, across from San Diego.