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On illegal immigration, there’s both good and bad news as the federal government closed out its fiscal year (FY19) last Monday, Sept. 30th.

 

Bad news first. Over 850,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended along the southern border during FY19, which is the largest number in the last 12 years. (Remember: apprehensions are simply the number of illegal immigrants that are caught. It’s a barometer to gauge how many are able to enter our country illegally without being caught.) So FY19 was not a good year in that respect.

 

For the good news, we started to see some positive numbers towards the end of FY19. 52,546 illegal immigrants were either apprehended or deemed inadmissible at the southern border last month (September). That marked the 4th consecutive monthly decline in that number.

 

The White House reported earlier this week that 163 miles of new border wall system is currently under construction, with 450 miles expected to be completed by the end of next year. Combine that with recent changes to our asylum policies and the President’s efforts to make other countries to step up and do their part to address this crisis, hopefully we’ll see this downward trend continue.

 

I’ve said this over and over: **legal** immigration has countless benefits to the U.S. But we have a right and responsibility to know who (and what) crosses our border.