Who should get credit for fewer border crossings?

Veteran Border Patrol agent Michael DeBruhl remembers when a large group of immigrants gathered in the streets of El Paso, Texas, near a Roman Catholic church in December 2022. The number of illegal border crossings had reached 216,162 that month, according to Customs and Border Protection data. “There were a thousand people out there that needed support. They needed somewhere to stay and something to eat,” DeBruhl said.

When Sacred Heart Church decided to transform its basketball gymnasium into a shelter for the waiting immigrants, DeBruhl volunteered to help. Now, almost two years later as fewer migrants cross the border, the shelter is preparing to close its doors by Oct. 7.

“That need just simply does not exist anymore,” DeBruhl said.

Over the past several months, illegal border crossings have plummeted to their lowest levels during the Biden administration. In December 2023, crossings nearly hit 250,000, but in July, only 56,408 migrants came across the border between ports of entry, CBP data showed. Though crossings rose slightly to about 58,000 in August, they still linger near four-year lows.

While immigration policy experts partially credit President Joe Biden’s recent asylum restrictions for the dip, they argue that Mexican enforcement is primarily responsible for the marked decline. Not only are fewer immigrants crossing illegally into the United States, but fewer are reaching the U.S.-Mexico border in the first place.

Back at the Sacred Heart shelter, as numbers climbed in 2022, DeBruhl said they started using camping mats instead of cots, which are easier to disinfect and could be stacked away for the day’s activities. The shelter was still full through May of this year, hosting 120 to 160 immigrants every night. But on Sept. 9, only 46 immigrants gathered for a breakfast of scrambled eggs, potatoes, toast, bacon, and oranges. On one recent night, just 11 immigrants sought shelter. On another, there were only nine, DeBruhl said.

The way migrants are crossing the border has also changed, he noted. Most of the individuals the shelter serves arrived at a port of entry after they booked an appointment using the Customs and Border Protection mobile app. Far fewer crossed without permission.

In June, Biden unveiled new asylum restrictions for immigrants who cross the border illegally between ports of entry. Under U.S. immigration law, an immigrant is allowed to ask for an asylum interview once he reaches U.S. soil, whether or not he arrives at a port of entry. But under Biden’s new order, border authorities will no longer consider asylum cases once illegal crossings average 2,500 per day for seven days in a row. The bar will remain in place until crossings fall below an average of 1,500 for one week. The rule makes exceptions for unaccompanied children, victims of human trafficking, and other individuals facing imminent danger.

Biden’s restrictions took effect immediately and have remained in place because the reduced crossings still have not fallen below the required threshold. The administration is reportedly considering extending the crackdown, requiring crossings to remain below 1,500 for several weeks, The New York Times reported last week.

Immigrants can still request asylum appointments using the CBP One app at ports of entry. Currently, there are 1,450 spots available per day. The Biden administration recently expanded the app’s radius to allow immigrants to apply for spots from southern Mexico. Spots fill rapidly. “It’s like the Ticketmaster of your life,” said Stephen Reeves, who is the executive director of Fellowship Southwest, an organization that also supports shelters and pastors.

After Biden’s asylum rule went into effect, illegal border crossings dropped from roughly 118,000 in May to 88,612 in June—the lowest since January 2021. When he checked in with shelter directors and pastors along the border over a WhatsApp group, Reeves said most of them reported slight declines, though some noted that numbers fluctuate depending on their location.

But crossings had already been declining steadily for a few months before Biden announced his executive order in June. In March, agents encountered 137,480 illegal immigrants. In April, crossings ticked down to just under 129,000.

Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, said that, prior to Biden’s executive order, Mexican authorities were already ramping up measures to prevent immigrants from amassing at their northern border while they waited to enter the United States.

“Just because we’re seeing less people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border doesn’t mean there’s less people on the move,” Ruiz Soto said. “In fact, we are seeing that more migrants are actually in Mexico waiting for a CBP One appointment.”

At the peak of sky-high crossings in 2023, thousands of immigrants waited in ragged camps for CBP One appointments in northern Mexico as they weighed the risks of crossing the Rio Grande or striking out across blistering ranchlands.

Under pressure from the Biden administration in December, Mexican authorities began clearing these camps. Authorities target railway stops, coastal points, and airports frequented by migrants passing through northern states like Coahuila and Chihuahua on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border, Ruiz Soto said.

Mexico encountered 116,626 immigrants in July, and doesn’t have the capacity to deport that many people, Ruiz Soto explained.

Instead, authorities periodically send immigrants who were apprehended in the north back to southern Mexico to ease the burden on northern communities while they wait for a CBP One appointment. Some immigrants have made the journey to the northern part of the country multiple times only to be shuttled south. In some cases, Mexican officials will escort migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border once they obtain an asylum appointment on the app. They hope to further disincentivize migrants from camping out in Mexico City or other northern cities, though thousands of immigrants are still waiting for weeks, even months, in the country’s capital.

“As long as Mexico can continue to keep its sustained elevated enforcement at its current levels, the U.S. policies of the border are going to have a minor effect,” Ruiz Soto said.

Some migrants are encountering more stringent enforcement even before they reach Mexico. Shortly after he took office in July, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino vowed to close the Darién Gap, an infamous stretch of roadless jungle that connects his country with Colombia. More than 506,000 migrants trekked the dangerous route in 2023.

The United States signed an agreement with Panama earlier this summer after months of negotiations, pledging to boost the nation’s deportation infrastructure and train Panamanian authorities in exchange for tougher measures.

Though migration through the gap declined in July, numbers still remain high, and the United States has yet to ramp up the promised support for expulsions and repatriation flights, according to field research conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies.

Sami DiPasquale is the executive director of Abara, an El Paso-based organization that supports a network of churches and shelters on both sides of the border. In July, DiPasquale visited Colombia to meet with a network of Central and South American church leaders ministering to immigrants in their home countries. At one point, DiPasquale and the group visited churches in Colombian towns and villages at the entrance of the Darién Gap. “Numbers had dropped in the towns that we were in,” DiPasquale said, but residents were unsure whether that decrease would last.

Ruiz Soto with the Migration Policy Institute said it’s also unclear how long Mexico can continue its current level of enforcement. “Mexico also cannot afford to have Mexican migrants waiting in southern Mexico,” which is one of the country’s most impoverished regions, Ruiz Soto said.

This year’s U.S. presidential election may also affect the decline. As the election approaches, asylum-seekers waiting for a CBP One appointment may decide to risk crossing the border without permission, fearful of any major policy changes, said Victor Manjarrez Jr., a retired chief patrol agent for the Tucson Sector.

“The polls that we do here in the United States, they get broadcast globally,” said Manjarrez, who is also a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. “We’re getting closer to elections. I think that’ll have a greater impact on what you see in terms of flows and even cooperation from other countries.”

If former President Donald Trump wins the election in November, Manjarrez expects a spike in illegal crossings between the period between the election and the inauguration in January. “When people perceive a certain administration being soft or hard on immigration, it’s usually ‘hurry up and get there’ by a certain date,” he noted.

DeBruhl at the Sacred Heart shelter said it’s important to keep the “peaks and valleys” in the number of crossings in context. Through his 26 years with the Border Patrol, he realized spikes and declines are continuous, since people are “always fleeing from something or running towards the hope of a better future for themselves and their family,” he said.

DeBruhl said he can’t predict how many migrants may be trying to cross the border after November. But now, with lower current needs, he said that Sacred Heart shelter will still close. “I think the church feels like, to a great degree, they have accomplished the mission.”