While this number of apprehensions by ⁦ @USBPChief⁩ is an increase over the past years, this is still within the agency’s ability to handle humanely. As you can clearly see, this happens every year at this time. The increase is normal as it follows the agricultural season.

2) Remember that Border Patrol is not processing people for asylum. They are still processing people for expulsion under pandemic emergency laws under Title 42. This processing takes about 3 minutes per person versus the 15-20 minutes asylum paperwork takes.

3) @USBPChief estimates that at least 28% of these apprehensions are people continually being apprehended, expelled and then crossing again and again. It’s similar to the voluntary returns we used to do in my day. However, I suspect the percentage is higher. Either way, it

4) doesn’t matter because a person being processed once or ten times is still a person being processed. The significance of this stat is that they are not fixing the situation. They are creating more work and just doing the same thing over and over. It’s the reason why

5) the only solutions to thousands of asylum seekers coming to our border is to create an bc asylum system and work on addressing the factors that are causing people to flee their own countries. Criminalizing asylum seekers is not and never will be a solution. It is also

6) inhumane, unethical and counterproductive. Remember as well that in 1996, agents averaged over 125,000 apprehensions a month with a third of the agents they have today. In 2000, agents averaged 137,000 apprehensions a month with half the agents they have today.

7) These numbers suggest that a force of nearly 20,000 Border Patrol agents should be able to process roughly 275,000 to 375,000 per month under this rapid expulsion processing.

8) The only crisis occurring on our southern border is the fact that we are still turning asylum seekers away and that we have a large amount of unaccompanied children because Trump and @USBPChief refused to accept any children during 2020. Asylum is a legal human right.

9) We have a moral and a legal responsibility to accept asylum seekers under the 1967 UN Protocol which the US ratified and under the Jimmy Carter 1980 Refugee Act. If anyone broke the law, it bc was the previous administration and @USBPChief for refusing to accept seekers.

10) If anyone is responsible for this “crisis” at the border, it is the previous administration and @USBPChief for refusing to do their jobs for over a year. The rest is politics. Videos and photos of conservatives armed in boats is politics. These same political leaders

11) did not care about these people before January 20th. They don’t care about them now. Their only gripe is that they are on this side of the wall. It is acceptable to them to throw unaccompanied children into Mexico without any assistance, but not acceptable to try and

12) find their families here in the US. It is acceptable to them when children were piled high in Border Patrol custody under Trump, but it is not acceptable to provide them with medical care. That’s what they are upset about. Never forget.