Immigration security

Illegal immigrants pose as families, tell tales of woe to gain entry to U.S.

Illegal immigrants are trying a bold new strategy to sneak into the U.S. — pairing up with unrelated children and pretending to be families, fabricating tales of heart-rending woes back home to try to convince border agents to admit them into the country, according to internal Homeland Security documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

That is one of the tactics feeding the surge of illegal immigrants in recent months, which the Border Patrol’s intelligence unit says was part of a pre-election rush to try to get into the country. The U.S. set records for illegal immigrant children and families in fiscal year 2016 and is on pace to break those records one month into fiscal year 2017.

Intelligence analysts said the patterns are shifting as migrants figure out how to game the system.

It has become so easy to sneak into the U.S. as a family that some aren’t even bothering to pay smugglers. Instead, they are making the trip on their own and saving thousands of dollars in fees. That has made the trip affordable for illegal immigrants who wouldn’t have made the journey otherwise, the analysts said in the documents.