Border Patrol agents arrest a migrant couple near Nogales, Arizona, 2014.
The Department of Homeland Security has released the latest border apprehension numbers, which show arrests are three times higher than the same time last year.
The statistic is correct if you only compare apprehensions in April 2017 to April 2018. The numbers do look staggering: from 14,000 to almost 51,000 border apprehensions.
But to get a true picture on the trend of border apprehensions, one analyst says, you must look back at least 10 years, not just one year.
Randy Capps is with the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit that monitors migration numbers. He says the Department of Homeland Security is playing fast and loose with the statistics.
"What are you comparing to? If you compare to the lowest year of almost ever, which was March and April of last year, then it is going to look as if it is a much bigger jump than it really is. Historically speaking, any of the last 10 years are very, very low. So, anyway you look at it, over the long run, apprehensions are way down."
Capps says last year the historic low number of people attempting to cross the border was something he called the "Trump effect." He says migrants were afraid to attempt to enter the country illegally. But now, Capps says, the numbers are back to normal, the lowest rate of apprehensions since the 1970s.
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