More than 5,000 Ukrainian refugees were detained by U.S. officials while trying to cross the border to flee Russia’s invasion of their homeland, new data show on Monday.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)’s recently released March numbers show 5,071 Ukrainians have tried to enter the U.S. illegally by land, air or sea.
Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has forced more than 10 million people to leave their homes, according to the United Nations, with over four million having left the country altogether.
And despite the well-documented flood of migrants coming to the southwest border from Central and South America, the latest figures show that people are attempting to illegally enter the U.S. from places as far as Turkey and China.
Nearly 90,000 of the 249,198 CBP encounters with migrants on either the northern or southern borders came from countries outside of the Northern Triangle of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
It comes as the Biden administration is facing growing opposition to lifting the migrant expulsion policy Title 42, which the federal government said would expire on May 23.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is behind the measure allowing border agents to turn asylum-seekers away on contact in the name of stopping the spread of COVID-19, said it was no longer necessary to public health.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading down to Panama on Tuesday, where he will discuss migration with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and officials from other nations in the Western hemisphere.
President Joe Biden has already announced measures to help Ukrainians fleeing Moscow’s attack, including welcoming 100,000 refugees into the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also extending temporary protected status for Ukrainians for 18 months, it announced on Monday, allowing those eligible to stay and work in the country.
Of those who were encountered by CBP in March, 3,274 attempted to cross the southwestern land border and 156 people through Canada in the north. Eight single Ukrainian adults were turned away last month under Title 42, though it’s not clear why.
But lawmakers as well as local and state officials along the southwest border are bracing for thousands more migrants from other parts of the world to attempt to cross the border illegally this summer, after Biden officially lifts the pandemic-era expulsion policy.
Last month, before Title 42’s end was announced, DHS said it was preparing for a possibility of as many as 18,000 people per day trying to cross the border after it was lifted.
Outside of the Northern Triangle, where the majority of asylum-seekers in the U.S. traditionally come from, 88,110 migrants were encountered at the southwestern border in March. Just over 36,000 were met at the northern border.
The number of people coming from Turkey last month nearly doubled from February, rising from 1,246 to 2,331.
More than 32,000 Cuban migrants were encountered in March, a sharp increase from 16,663 in February and less than 10,000 in January.
Additionally, 5,060 people came from India and 1,989 from China.
It comes as even members of Biden’s own party voice opposition to lifting Title 42.
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters on Monday joined a growing chorus of Democrats who are working to stop the Biden administration from ending the expulsion policy as migrant crossings have already soared to the highest in two decades.
The Michigan Democrat, who chairs both the Homeland Security committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told The Hill that he has privately raised concerns with Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas and other administration officials.
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