(CNSNews.com) - White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday downplayed the latest numbers on encounters with migrants at the border, blaming them on seasonal trends and adding that the numbers are down when compared to a year ago.

As CNSNews.com reported, Customs and Border Patrol reported that it encountered 191,899 migrants at the southwest border between ports of entry and at ports of entry in March. That’s a 22.39 percent increase from the 156,787 encounters recorded in February, but a 13.78 percent decline from the 222,574 encountered in March 2022.

“I wanted to ask you about immigration.  We’re preparing for — next month, for Title 42 to lift and for more people to be eligible to apply for asylum. We saw that new border numbers are out for March and that there’s been — the vast majority of migrant encounters are from Mexico and Central America,” a reporter asked.
 
“I know you’ve got a program separately for a couple other nations where you saw a lot of people coming from there, but can you talk about how you’re preparing for next month and particularly with people coming from these particular nationalities?” she asked.

“So two things — you kind of asked a couple of things. Let me just touch on the March numbers for a second, as you just stated. Look, what we believe is: Our border enforce- — enforcement measures and what we have seen continued to limit unlawful immigration. So that is important to note,” Jean-Pierre said.
 
“We typically see an increase in border encounters this time of the year as weather — as you — I’m sure you’ve reported — as weather gets warmer, and we — you know, but what we want to note and what’s notable is that the seasonal increase this time around was the lowest in two years,” she said.

“And the number of people attempting to cross unlawfully last month was down about 23 percent from this time last year, and we’ll continue to do what we can to build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system, but as you’ve heard me say many times, Congress needs to act and to also show that they truly show — have real concern and not do political stunts when it comes to the border,” the press secretary said. 

“As we — as you’ve heard from the Secretary of Homeland Security, they put out a plan back in January on what the process would look like, and we’re continuing to implement that plan once Title 42 is lifted,” she said.

“And as you know — and we’ve talked about this — we’re expanding legal pathways like parole — parolee — parolee program immi- — for migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba, and we have actually seen the numbers come down by more than 90 percent,” Jean-Pierre said. 

“We’re working with our partners across the Western Hemisphere to jointly manage migration patterns.  We’re surging additional — additional resources, including personnel and technology to the border.  And we’re ramping up ex- — expedited removals under Title 8,” the press secretary said.
 
“So, again, we — the Department of Homeland Security put out their — their plan back in January, and they’re going to be implementing that plan, and I just laid out some of the things that they announced that they’re going to be doing, and we’re going to be really focused on making sure that we have a humane, orderly process when it comes to the border,” she said.