Arrests along the southern border have risen in recent months to their highest levels in more than a decade. | Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images EMPLOYMENT & IMMIGRATION Border Patrol arrested nearly 99,000 migrants in April

Border Patrol arrested nearly 99,000 migrants at the southwest border in April, according to statistics published Wednesday by Customs and Border Protection.

Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost previewed the latest numbers during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing. She said the newest arrest figures were “off the charts compared to recent years,” and called on Congress to take action.


“We cannot address this crisis by simply shifting more resources or building more facilities,” Provost told lawmakers. “It’s like holding a bucket under a faucet. It doesn’t matter how many buckets you give me if we can’t turn off the flow.”

Arrests along the southern border — a rough metric to measure illegal crossings — have risen in recent months to their highest levels in more than a decade.

Border arrests increased nearly 7 percent in April compared with March. The monthly totals are the highest in more than a decade, and are starting to resemble those observed in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, when annual arrests routinely topped one million.

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The high volume of border arrests represents a remarkable reversal since 2017, President Donald Trump's first year in office, when these arrests fell to their lowest level in 46 years and a Department of Homeland Security report said "the southwest land border is more difficult to illegally cross today than ever before.”

Border arrest figures subsequently increased in 2018, and have escalated more rapidly in recent months.

In response to the influx, the White House last week urged Congress to provide an additional $4.5 billion in funding this year to address the surge.

More than half of that funding would pay for additional shelter space for unaccompanied minors. The rest would fund an increase in adult detention beds, new processing centers and other initiatives related to the response.

Border Patrol arrested more than 58,000 family members in April, according the latest statistics. The family arrests represented more than half of the monthly total.

The agency picked up nearly 9,000 unaccompanied minors in April, similar to the previous month, but still high relative to past trends.

"We need more than words,” Provost told lawmakers Wednesday. “It's time to act.”