Stemming the flood

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

The U.S. southern border.

Illegal border crossings have hit record numbers under the Biden-Harris administration: More than 10 million people have been reported to enter the country illegally since President Biden took office.

The numbers peaked late last year, with nearly a quarter million illegal crossings in December alone. In February, the number was about half that … but still, six figures.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: But the numbers are trending downward. In July and August, illegal crossings fell to around 60,000 per month. Which is still 50 percent higher compared to what happened under the Trump administration. Then the average was around 40,000 per month.

The question is: why the recent drop? And will it last?

Here’s WORLD Radio’s Anna Johansen Brown.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: Michael DeBruhl vividly remembers December 2022, when throngs of people gathered on the streets of El Paso, Texas, around Sacred Heart Church—just a few blocks from the port of entry connecting Texas with Mexico.

DEBRUHL: There were 1000 people outside the shelter and the church. Temperatures got down to about 28 so most of the people had to stay outside. The parish pastor, in a great leap of faith, just opened the doors to these people.

The Roman Catholic parish welcomed immigrants into a basketball gym converted into a shelter able to house up to 160 people. At the beginning of this year they were full. But since then, their numbers have dwindled, and the shelter’s leaders are preparing to close it up.

DEBRUHL: A few weeks ago, one day we had nine people in here. So encounters across the Southwest border have decreased significantly, and we are seeing very few people.

So what’s behind the drop? One factor is weather…blistering summer temperatures typically deter people from making the dangerous trek across desert borderlands. Crossings usually pick back up during the autumn months.

But what about border policy?

BIDEN: I took executive action to secure the border. It’s working.

In June, President Joe Biden barred most immigrants from asking for asylum if they cross illegally between ports of entry without an appointment. Immigrants waiting in Mexico can request an asylum appointment in the United States using a mobile app called CBP One. Currently, there are about 14-hundred spots available per day. Immigrants often have a 6-month wait to snag one of those spots.

But some experts argue that Mexican enforcement is primarily responsible for the decline. Not only are fewer immigrants crossing illegally into the United States, fewer are reaching the U.S.-Mexico border in the first place.

RUIZ SOTO: Since February, when we began to see, month by month, decline in apprehension southeast Mexico border.

Ariel Ruiz Soto is a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.

RUIZ SOTO: Mexico's enforcement since December has scaled up significantly. For example, in northern Mexico now there's more enforcement at railways and at Coastal points that traditionally had been used by migrants to get to the US Mexico border. In states like Coahuila, Chihuahua and others. it's not just that they're more doing more enforcement, but that they're doing more targeted operations closer to the Mexico border to keep migrants from getting to the Mexico border.

In July, Mexico encountered nearly 120,000 immigrants, but it doesn’t have the capacity to deport that many people. So, Mexican officials have been shuttling immigrants further south to ease the strain on northern border communities.

RUIZ SOTO: Just because we're seeing less people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border doesn't mean there's less people on the move. In fact, we are seeing that more migrants are actually in Mexico waiting for a CBP One appointment.

Migrants are also encountering more stringent enforcement before they reach Mexico. In July, Panama’s president pledged to turn back some migrants crossing through the roadless stretch of jungle known as the Darien Gap, which connects Panama with Colombia.

Sami DiPasquale is the executive director of Abara, an organization that supports a network of border shelters and churches. In July, DiPasquale visited Colombian towns situated along the entrance of the Darien Gap.

DIPASQUALE: The numbers had dropped in the towns that we were in, but they seemed like they hadn't decided for sure if it was going to be, you know, a sustained drop or not, but the numbers were less.

Though migration through the gap declined in July, numbers still remain high. The United States promised to pay for repatriation flights in return for Panama’s stricter measures. The U.S. government is only beginning to follow through on the promised support, and Panama’s president said he can’t forcibly remove the migrants without more help.

And back in Mexico, Ariel Ruiz Soto says it’s unclear how long the country can sustain its current level of enforcement.

RUIZ SOTO: Mexico also cannot afford to have migrants waiting in southern Mexico, either. Southern Mexico has been, is among the most impoverished places of the regions in Mexico, and therefore they need assistance and to try to control better flow of migrants.

The results of this year’s U.S. presidential election could reverse the decline. Asylum-seekers waiting for an appointment may decide to risk crossing the border illegally in case policies change after November.

MANJARREZ: The polls that we do here in the United States, they get broadcast globally.

Victor Manjarrez Jr. served with Border Patrol for more than 20 years and is a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso.

MANJARREZ: When people perceive a certain administration being soft or hard on immigration, it's usually to hurry up and get there by a certain date. Let's say former President Trump wins the election in November. I expect from November to the time he takes office to have some of the highest activity levels for immigration.=

Back at the Sacred Heart shelter, Michael DeBruhl says he can’t predict what will happen at the border after November. But for now, the shelter is planning on closing on October 7th with no plans to reopen in the foreseeable future.

DEBRUHL: With the number of people that we have now, there's significant capacity in El Paso now for migrants. And so that mission just simply no longer exists for the shelters.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown. Addie Offereins wrote and reported this story.

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