On this episode of Newts World, last month set a new US-Mexico

Border Migration Record. Border Patrol has shared monthly data about its apprehensions of migrants

at the U.S. Mexico border since October 1999.

In December, 225,000 migrants crossed the southern border.

We have seen scenes of the impact of their arrival at Eagle Pass, Texas,

in the streets of El Paso, and at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City.

All locations that are trying to accommodate the huge influx of people coming to the United States illegally.

Many are fleeing their home countries seeking asylum with sharp increases of migrants from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti, Colombia,

and Guatemala.

Here to discuss the migrant crisis, I am really pleased to welcome my guest Laura Reese.

She is currently the director of the Border Security and Immigration Center

at the Heritage Foundation.

She previously served as Acting Deputy Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

and Council for the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims. flames.

Laura, welcome and thank you for joining me on Newsworld.

Thank you for having me on Good morning.

What attracted you to focusing so much on the issue of the border and migration?

I was actually in college and the first time I drove across the US-Mexico border.

You can see kind of no-man's land between the two borders and I could see on the Mexican side a number of

adult males but also teens looking north and I knew they were trying to figure

out how they were going to cross illegally and I was fascinated by the issue ever since all my college

papers after that I could tie to immigration and I've been at this now for 27 years.

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