U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) just released new border migration numbers through May. Border Patrol apprehended more migrants in May 2019 than in any month since March 2006 (monthly data here).But back then, something like 95% of migrants were single adults. In May, only 27% were single adults.

In what is becoming a monthly ritual, here are the numbers in graphical form. You can download an updated PDF with these and other graphics at the easy-to-remember URL bit.ly/2019wolaborder.

Two-thirds of migrants apprehended this year are kids or parents. That is unprecedented, and was absolutely unimaginable only a few years ago.
In May, 73 percent of all migrants apprehended at the border were children or parents. Nearly three out of four.
Apprehensions of single adults are up, but not even as high as they were in 2014 and earlier years. Child and family migration accounts for nearly all of the current increase.
It’s not just the United States. #Mexico is on the way to another vertiginous increase in asylum-seekers this year. In 5 months, Mexico has almost equaled its 2018 applicants figure, which was a huge increase at the time.
Assuming maybe 8,000 single adults, about 1 out of every 205 people in Honduras was apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in May alone. Honduras saw the biggest child and parent apprehensions increase over October-May ’18: 433%.
About 1 in 350 Guatemalans was apprehended at the border in May. Guatemala is the number-one nationality of migrants apprehended at the border. Followed by Honduras, and then Mexico—the actual bordering country.
El Salvador is in third place in border apprehensions among the Central American “Northern Triangle” countries, but its growth rate is not far behind Honduras.
Border apprehensions of children and families from outside the Northern Triangle and Mexico are also way up. Are they Cuban? Venezuelan? Nicaraguan? From Asia or Africa? Probably all of the above, but CBP doesn’t report other nationalities monthly.
Look at this increase in Cubans arriving at border ports of entry. The January 2017 drop was the Obama administration’s revocation of the “wet foot dry foot” policy granting admittance to any Cuban who could touch U.S. soil. Numbers are recovering fast.
At ports of entry, CBP’s “metering” practice continues to restrict, severely, the number of people who can ask for asylum. All of the growth in child-family migration is happening between ports of entry. This means smugglers get more money, and Border Patrol gets nearly all processing duty.
Here’s the above “metering” graph, zoomed in and just showing kids and families. They’re about 4,500 per month, rarely over.

Finally, some charts showing border drug seizures through May. Note how nearly all drugs are overwhelmingly seized at the official land ports of entry. The action is not in the areas between the ports, where Border Patrol operates.

Border marijuana seizures have dropped precipitously since several US states legalized/regulated cannabis.

You can download an updated PDF with these and other graphics at the easy-to-remember URL bit.ly/2019wolaborder.