Illegal Border Crossings on Pace to Hit Almost 1 Million This Year

Most Central Americans will be released, despite 90 percent having meritless asylum claims

A caravan of mainly Honduran migrants, heading to the United States, arrives in Chiquimula, Guatemala, on Oct. 22, 2018. Orlando Estrada/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—Large groups of migrants from Central America, traveling by bus through Mexico, have become the new norm in illegal border crossings into the United States.

In one instance, border agents encountered 334 illegal immigrants who had been dropped off by eight commercial buses right at the U.S.–Mexico border, Kevin McAleenan, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner, said in a Senate hearing on March 6.