More than 600,000 arrests are expected along the southern border this year after January's year-over-year figures jumped 84 percent.
Whatever "Trump effect" we saw when the president took office in 2017 has all but evaporated, according to Princeton Policy Advisors.
“Last year was up 86 percent over the previous year, and then we're forecasting 2019 at 606,000 apprehensions, so that's an increase of 31 percent and the January numbers are running 33 percent above that,” says PPA President Steven Kopits.
Kopits and others still insists most illegals aliens are coming for work.
“There are two million open jobs in the U.S. that are in the migrant category, so there's a lot of work if you can get over the border,” he says. “Some of that manifests itself as people showing up for asylum. I personally view that as mostly economic migrants using the legal tools available to them.”
“These are people who are showing up without 'coyotes' and doing it on the cheap, hoping to use U.S. asylum law as their vehicle for entry into the country.”
The PPA is pushing a "market-based" solution to illegal immigration, where each migrant would pay a $20 daily fee to work in the United States.
Border Security is the primary concern of Republicans like Woodlands Congressman Kevin Brady, who voted against the House bill to block President Trump’s Emergency Declaration on the US-Mexico Border. Hear Brady’s interview on Houston’s Morning News: