Cocaine seizures up as more than 2 million migrants crossed border

The number of migrants crossing the southern border with Mexico in June dropped, but the number of cocaine seizures rose, according to the latest figures from US Customs and Border Protection.

More than 153,000 migrants crossed the southern border with Mexico in June, bringing the total “encounters” with Border Patrol to more than 2 million for the current fiscal year, the data shows.

The number represented a 14% decrease from May, which saw more than 207,000 migrants cross the border, but the number of people who were repeat border crossers went up.

In June, 26% of all “encounters” with Border Patrol agents involved those who had at least “one prior encounter in the previous 12 months,” the figures show.

The average re-encounter rate from 2014 to 2019 was 15%, CBP statistics show.

While the number of migrants were down, CBP officers reported a 62 percent increase in seizures of cocaine, although seizures of other drugs, such as methamphetamines, heroin and fentanyl decreased.

In May, more than two-thirds of all encounters, 68%, were single adults. The 140,197 encounters represented a 16% drop compared to May.

While the number of single-adult border crossers went down, encounters of unaccompanied minors increased 4 percent with 15,271 encounters in June compared with 14, 678 in May, according to CBP statistics.