September 1, 2020

Fact of the Day: Border Apprehensions

Over the past decade, apprehensions¹ at the Mexican border were fairly steady at about 30,000 per month. After Donald Trump became president, apprehensions went down, then up, and then spiked briefly during the “caravan” surge of 2019. However, by the end of 2019 we had returned to about 30,000 apprehensions per month, roughly the same as we had during the 2011-2016 period. In other words, even after everything Trump did at the border—separating children from their parents, keeping asylum seekers from filing claims, building a wall, etc—all he accomplished was to get border crossings back to where they had been when he took office.

¹Apprehensions are generally considered a pretty good proxy for the number of people trying to cross the border illegally.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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