Along the US-Mexico Border Prosecutions for Harboring Immigrants Continue to Climb

TRAC Immigration reports that the latest available case-by-case records tracking lead charges for February 2020 show 504 new prosecutions under federal laws prohibiting the harboring of undocumented immigrants, up from 400 during the same month last year. Eighty-six percent of new prosecutions in February took place in federal courts along the US-Mexico border. On an annual basis, harboring prosecutions reached an all-time high in FY 2019 with just shy of 5,700 new cases, up from about 4,500 in FY 2018. This growth may be at least partly attributed to a directive issued by then Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 encouraging federal prosecutors to increase prosecutions against harboring.

KJ