Close encounters of a third kind.

 
This AP News article on immigration exhibits interesting usages of the word “encounter,” as both noun and verb:

1. “Since Biden’s inauguration, the U.S. has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials.”

2. “There were 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February…”

3. “Still, the encounters of both unaccompanied minors and families are lower than they were at various points during the Trump administration, including in spring 2019.”

4. “That May, authorities encountered more than 55,000 migrant children, including 11,500 unaccompanied minors, and about 84,500 migrants traveling in family units…”

5. “Border patrol officials had encountered more than 29,000 unaccompanied minors since Oct. 1…”

So what’s going on here? I don’t remember ever before “encountering” the word “encounter” in an article about immigration. What word is “encounter” replacing? And why? The Associated Press has become a decidedly left-of-center news source, so perhaps the term “encounter” is used here so as to avoid using a politically disfavored word, like “arrest,” “detain,” “incarcerate,” or “take into custody” – disfavored at least when those being “encountered” by law enforcement officers are Latin American would-be immigrants to the U.S.

But what does it actually mean to write that “authorities encountered…migrant children”? Did they just see them, count them, and let them move along? Is it now an official term of art in the ranks of the Border Patrol to talk about “close encounters” with terrestrial aliens?