“The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during the first eight months of FY 2016 the government reported 25,680 new criminal prosecutions for illegal entry, and 20,628 new criminal prosecutions for illegal re-entry. If trends continue, illegal re-entry charges, which are a felony under Title 8 Section 1326 of the United States Code, will have fallen 8.4 percent from their levels a year ago. Meanwhile, illegal entry prosecutions, which are only a petty misdemeanor under Title 8 Section 1325, will have risen 7.7 percent over FY 2015. These comparisons of the number of defendants charged with offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. The five districts along the southwest border with Mexico differed greatly in their charging patterns. The Southern District of Texas (Houston) and the Western District of Texas (San Antonio) accounted for 96 percent of the illegal entry prosecutions, while Arizona and New Mexico accounted for 59 percent of the illegal re-entry prosecutions. For more details, including timelines of prosecutions and top district rankings for both charges, see the report at: http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/430/“