The number of unaccompanied immigrant children getting caught illegally crossing the southwest border has fallen by nearly half since last year amid increased immigration enforcement in Mexico, several new reports show.
The upshot for Georgia: Fewer of them are being released to the custody of relatives living in the Peach State while they undergo deportation proceedings. Just 361 have been placed in Georgia during the first six months of this fiscal year, according to federal statistics. That represents less than a quarter of the 2,047 who were placed in Georgia in all of last fiscal year.
Between Oct. 1 and April 30, federal immigration authorities apprehended 18,919 of the children on the southwest border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol statistics. That's down 48 percent from the same time frame last fiscal year, when 36,280 were apprehended.
One possible reason: Mexico has deported a record number of unaccompanied Central American children since last fall, a Pew Research Center report shows. Between October and February, Mexico carried out 3,819 deportations of these children, a 56 percent increase over the same time period the year before.
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