US Border News Weekly Newsletter - (Volume 1- Number 3)
Five Top 2024 US-Mexico Border Migration and Security Trends
Welcome to the US Border News Weekly Newsletter!
One of our goals for this publication is to offer “deep dives” of border issues that go far beyond our daily news reports. This is the first of what we hope will be many more to come - offering information and perspectives you won’t find in the mainstream media.
The information presented this week comes from a recognized authority and trusted source: WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America). Here are their picks as five of the top migration and security trends at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024:
1. Crackdowns temporarily lowered nmbers.
2,135,005 people entered CBP’s custody at the U.S.-Mexico border between October 2023 and September 2024 (combining people who came to the official border crossings plus people apprehended by CBP’s Border Patrol component). That was the smallest number since 2021, and 14 percent fewer people than in fiscal 2023.
Between the border crossings, Border Patrol’s apprehensions of migrants dropped 25 percent from 2023 (from 2,045,838 to 1,530,523).
The decline is the result of two ongoing crackdowns on migrants:
Mexico – Starting in January, Mexico’s government stepped up its efforts to block migrants transiting the country’s territory from reaching the U.S.-Mexico border. Between January and August, Mexico reported encountering migrants 925,085 times, nearly triple the full-year total for 2022, which at the time was a record. Mexico has not detained or deported people heavily, choosing instead to transport tens of thousands of people to the southern part of the country, where many are awaiting appointments at border crossings using the U.S. government’s CBP One app.
United States – After Mexico’s crackdown cut Border Patrol’s apprehensions in half from December 2023 to January 2024, the Biden administration cut them in half again with a June proclamation and rule banning most access to the U.S. asylum system between ports of entry when numbers are high.
The administration’s asylum curbs led to a sharp drop (blue in the chart below, about -95 percent from December to September) in the number of asylum seekers released into the U.S. interior. The new procedure requires people to voluntarily express fear of return in order to start an asylum process, and usually to prove a higher standard of threat in an interview with an asylum officer shortly after arrival, often while in custody in expedited removal proceedings.
Combining Border Patrol and those at ports of entry, the nationalities most frequently encountered at the border in 2024 were Mexico (-9% from 2023), Venezuela (-2%), Guatemala (-7%), Cuba (+6%), Honduras (-34%), Colombia (-20%), Ecuador (+5%), Haiti (+16%), El Salvador (-12%), and China (+57%).
Ample evidence points to this lull in migration being temporary, though that does not necessarily mean that migration will return to the record highs of late 2023:
From the past ten years of experience, we know that crackdowns bring only temporary drops in migration, as root causes persist and as some nationalities and demographics are less likely to be deported.
The reduction in migration brought by the Biden administration asylum rule has bottomed out, with Border Patrol apprehensions remaining between about 54,000 and 58,000 since July.
After notable declines from record levels in late 2023, the daily average of migration through Honduras and through Panama’s Darién Gap has inched upward since August 2024. A big reason is an increase in migrants leaving Venezuela after disastrous July 28 elections, when the sitting government refused to acknowledge an apparent opposition victory.
2. Children and families made up 43 percent of migrants encountered.
Of the 2,135,005 migrants encountered in 2024, 916,125 (43 percent) were children, or parents with children. The percentage was consistent for Border Patrol apprehensions alone, with 655,282 of 1,530,523 involving families. Forty-three percent represent the second-highest share since 2012, when family status records for Border Patrol apprehensions began to be publicly available, and is quite likely the second-highest ever. (The number-one year was 2019, during the first Trump administration, when nearly two-thirds of Border Patrol apprehensions were of family members and unaccompanied children, mainly from Central America).
The top five nationalities of child and family migrants encountered in 2024 were Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, and Colombia.
3. The geography of migration has undergone rapid post-pandemic shifts and moved west since the end of Title 42. Texas’ crackdown did not cause this, WOLA says:
Border Patrol divides the U.S.-Mexico border into nine sectors. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, one of these sectors would be migrants’ top destination for many years, leading all others in agents’ apprehensions. San Diego, California was number one from 1973 through 1997; Tucson, Arizona led from 1998 to 2012; Rio Grande Valley, Texas was first from 2013 through December 2021.
After the pandemic, the pattern changed dramatically. Since 2022 the identity of the number-one sector has changed every few months. Just since April 2023, the month before Title 42 ended, five of Border Patrol’s nine border sectors have been the busiest at different times.
Since July of last year, either Tucson or San Diego has been the number-one sector. That represents some westward movement in migration, as Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, Del Rio, and El Paso sectors had been in the lead earlier in the post-pandemic period.
It does not mean, however, that the Texas state government’s “Operation Lone Star” border crackdown is working. Since December 2023, the record month for Border Patrol migrant apprehensions, these have declined 78 percent border-wide. Texas does not stand out.
Texas (-86 percent) and Arizona (-85 percent) led the four U.S.-Mexico border states with almost identical rates of decrease from December to September. From January to September, Arizona has a steeper rate of decrease, and since May—that is, since the Biden administration asylum crackdown—California, too, has declined faster than Texas.
“Operation Lone Star” has cost over $11 billion and raised many human rights concerns, but has not deterred migration to Texas any more than to states where governments are not carrying out border crackdowns, WOLA concludes.
4. Migrant deaths may have declined. But deaths as a share of the migrant population have not.
A shocking number of migrants continue to perish on U.S. soil, usually from extreme heat or cold, dehydration, drownings, or falls from the border wall. Sometime in 2024, Border Patrol’s official count of migrant remains (which humanitarian workers say is an undercount) surpassed 10,000 for this century.
“Overall, southwest border deaths were down 30% comparing the fourth quarter of last fiscal year to this fiscal year,” CBP reported, without offering aggregate numbers for either summer. We know from secondary media reports that Border Patrol recovered 568 remains of migrants in fiscal 2021, 895 in 2022, 704 in 2023, and (as of September, according to CBS News) 560 in 2024. Agents in the El Paso Sector recovered the remains of at least 175 migrants during fiscal 2024, USA Today reported.
Though the overall number of deaths is down from the horrific high of 2022, it is similar as a proportion of the overall migrant population, as measured by Border Patrol apprehensions. Though the 2024 number is incomplete and may end up higher, for now it represents 37 migrant remains recovered per every 100,000 Border Patrol apprehensions, up somewhat from 2023 (34 per 100,000) and down slightly from 2022 (41 per 100,000).
5. Fentanyl seizures dropped for the first time. It’s not clear why.
Seizures of the potent opioid fentanyl fell for the first time since the drug began appearing. CBP seized 21,148 pounds of the drug in 2024, down from 26,718 pounds in 2023 (-26%).
The reduction is happening even as CBP has deployed more scanners and other technology to detect it, and carried out more targeted operations against smugglers.
A possible, but hard-to-prove, reason for the decline could have to do with shifting patterns in Mexican organized crime. Reports emerged in 2023 that Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, which controls much of the drug’s production, issued an order to cease production of the drug in Mexico’s Sinaloa state after the January 2023 arrest, and subsequent U.S. extradition, of Ovidio Guzmán, the son of former Sinaloa chief Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Some incidents in Sinaloa indicate that the cartel enforced this ban violently. Though fentanyl production has since increased in other Mexican states, this disruption may at least partially explain the 2024 drop in CBP seizures.
Similar to past years, 86.1 percent of 2024 fentanyl seizures occurred at official border crossings. Of the remaining 13.9 percent seized by Border Patrol, 4.5 percent was seized from vehicles at the agency’s interior checkpoints. Of those arrested for possessing fentanyl at ports of entry between 2019 and 2024, 80.2 percent were U.S. citizens, according to federal data obtained by the Cato Institute. There is no significant connection between migration and fentanyl smuggling.
Also similar to past years, 97 percent was seized in California or Arizona. “Half of the fentanyl coming into the U.S. is seized at the Mariposa Port of Entry” in Nogales, Arizona, CBP’s top official, Troy Miller, told the Arizona Republic.
Seizures of cocaine increased 10 percent, and methamphetamine increased 30 percent. Heroin fell 21 percent and marijuana 8 percent.
WOLA’s Conclusion:
“The 2024 decline in migrants arriving at the border … is a result of sharply limiting persecuted and threatened people’s ability to seek protection at the U.S.-Mexico border, and it is unlikely to be long-lasting.”
(This “deep-dive” was excerpted from WOLA’s analysis of “Five Migration and Security Trends at the U.S.-Mexico Border.”) For even more detailed reporting on this subject we recommend the link (above) to the data in their original report.
In Case You Missed It:
Here is a summary of US Border News reporting for the previous week:
Texas Border: State Repels 650+ Illegal Crossings Governor Says
"Operation Lone Star" credited with sharp drop in migrant crossings - but there are still concerns about a possible "border rush" before President-Elect Trump takes office.
Texas Border: Kidnapped Child Rescued; Stash House Busted; More Migrants Cross
Human smuggling activity is on the uptick along the Texas border with Mexico.
Texas to Migrants: "Don't Rush the Border - We're Ready For You"
There are still concerns about a "migrant rush" before President-elect Trump takes office.
US Border: Migrant Smuggling Reports Up - More Groups Arrested
But no post-election "migrant rush" some feared.
US-Mexico Border: Cartel Violence, Threats, Arrests
Things are heating up on both sides of the US Southern Border.
Trump names a "Border Czar" - Here's What to Expect From Him
Cooperation, Not Confrontation with Texas over "Operation Lone Star" for one.
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Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
