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It was only 10 months ago when the U.S. set record highs at the border, with roughly 250,000 migrants taken into Border Patrol custody in December 2023. But today, border apprehensions are running steady at their lowest level in four years, with just 54,000 Border Patrol migrant encounters in September. This fragile equilibrium has held since July, when the steep decline in crossings ended and migrant encounters hit a plateau. But despite the relative quiet at the U.S. border, migrants continue to arrive at Mexico’s southern border with dreams of safety and a better life in this country.
Migrant crossings have been falling since the last days of December, when the Biden administration convinced Mexico to undertake its largest crackdown on migrants in the last decade. Following a March 2023 decision by the Mexican Supreme Court limiting migrant detentions to 36 hours, Mexican officials came up with a new strategy: “El Carrusel:” the merry-go-round.
Under this strategy, Mexican immigration officials deployed checkpoints throughout the country and began rounding up migrants and sending them south to the Mexico-Guatemala border. Migrants who attempt to travel north again face the risk of being arrested and sent back south every time they try. Arrests quickly hit records, and the number of migrants making it to the U.S. border began falling. By the end of May, apprehensions had already dropped more than 50%.
This drop accelerated again in June, when the Biden administration implemented a new asylum process at the southern border, blocking migrants who cross between ports of entry from access to humanitarian protection screenings and rapidly deporting thousands of people back to Mexico. Apprehensions fell another 50% from the start of June through July, then stabilized as the new status quo went into effect. Since early July, apprehensions have remained remarkably stable.
As an example of this shift, in the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, apprehensions fell from around 2,800 a day in late December to around 1,000 a day in the first week of June when Biden’s new asylum rule went into effect. By the first week of July, apprehensions had fallen to 414 per day and have remained at that level or below in the three months since. Similar patterns have played out across the border, from Texas to California.
The Biden administration has pointed to these drops in crossing to claim success in reducing migration, and recently extended the asylum restrictions, arguing that they are necessary to keep numbers down. But these bans don’t mean migrants are entirely blocked from seeking protection. Roughly 45,000 people are paroled into the country at the southern border each month through the CBP One app process. These individuals are given one year of parole and then placed into removal proceedings, where they can apply for asylum if they want.
The CBP One process exemplifies the Biden administration’s “carrot and stick” policies; allowing access to alternate legal pathways and punishing those who don’t use them. However, access to the appointments has become increasingly difficult for most migrants waiting in Mexico, as delays have risen into the 8-9 month range for what is, at its core, a lottery system. With a new system of protected buses aiming to help migrants with CBP One appointments get through Mexico’s blockade, the Biden administration appears to be hoping that migrants will stay in southern Mexico and wait for months until they get a CBP One appointment, rather than risk the chance of traveling north.
South of Mexico’s border, there are signs that the slow-down in migration is ending. Migration through the Darién Gap (between Colombia and Panama) increased in September, rising from a two-year low in August to 25,111 people. While this is still relatively low in comparison to the first half of the year, nationality-specific data showed a sharp increase in Venezuelan migrants coming through the Gap. This lends support to concerns that the August elections, widely decried by other countries in the region as stolen, may be driving a new wave of Venezuelans to leave the country.
Data from Honduras also suggests that more migrants are heading north through Central America. Migrant encounters recorded by Honduran officials hit a two-year low in August, and then rose 15 percent in September. Data through October 7 suggests this increase is accelerating. At the current rate, the number of migrants recorded passing through Honduras this month is expected to be roughly 27 percent higher than in September (although even this increase would still account for fewer migrants than in October 2022 and October 2023).
As more migrants arrive in southern Mexico, the pressure is building in Tapachula and Villahermosa, the two cities along the Mexico-Guatemala border where tens of thousands of migrants remain trapped. Last weekend, a caravan of roughly 1,000 people left Tapachula with the intent to walk or hitchhike to the United States. Many cited frustrations with CBP One delays, dangerous conditions in southern Mexico, and lack of jobs in the cities where they have been forced to wait for months.
The caravan, along with a second one which left the week before, is unlikely to make it to the U.S. border. Since 2019, every caravan to set out toward the United States has been broken up by Mexican officials, often within a matter of days. However, the resumption of caravans suggests that Mexico’s “merry-go-round” strategy may be reaching its limits, with migrants no longer willing to wait in southern Mexico in increasingly untenable situations.
Viewed through the broader hemispheric lens, the current lull at the U.S. border seems increasingly fragile. Migrants still view this country as their best chance at safety and the American Dream and are still making their way across the Western Hemisphere to come here. The delays in the CBP One process are undermining the administration’s message to migrants, building frustrating and driving some to abandon the lottery and travel north again. Without sustained and permanent change to the system, it’s unclear how much longer the current situation can hold.
FILED UNDER: Biden Administration, U.S.-Mexico Border