Border officials are finding more cases of unrelated migrants posing as families

Federal immigration officials assigned to the U.S.-Mexico border are seeing an uptick in the number of instances in which investigators have been able to identify unrelated migrants posing as families in an effort to evade immediate deportation after they have illegally crossed into the country.

From mid-April through May 31, Immigration and Customs Enforcement interviewed 1,126 people who claimed to be traveling with a family member when they were taken into custody. Of that group, 206 "fraudulent families" were found to have fabricated familial relations either by verbal statements or with bogus legal documents. A family consists of two or more people, according to ICE.

The agency uncovered 422 fraudulent paper documents or verbal claims in that six-week portion of its continuing investigation.

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