After record highs, illegal immigration plummets at US-Mexico border
Illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped to a five-year low this week, amid the holidays and the Biden administration's ongoing efforts to contain unlawful crossings at the border.
U.S. Border Patrol logged an average of 1,000 daily migrant encounters in the seven days that ended on Jan. 5 along the U.S.-Mexico border, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told Paste BN on Monday.
The agency hasn't seen average daily crossings at that level since April 2020, the official said. At the time, it was the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when global travel and migration slowed dramatically.
Migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border typically dip right after the winter holidays.
But the early January average was a quarter of what it was during the same week a year ago when average daily encounters topped 4,000, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak with the press.
Even nine months ago, Border Patrol was reporting 1,000 migrant encounters a day in a single sector. "Encounters" refer to both migrants apprehended while trying to evade authorities and those who turn themselves in to border agents, seeking asylum.
In the El Paso Sector, which stretches from West Texas through New Mexico, border agents were encountering a daily average of 1,004 migrants during a seven-day period in late April, according to the city of El Paso's migrant "situational awareness" dashboard.
"We anticipated that more people would come to the U.S. or seek asylum in the U.S. around Christmastime or around the New Year," which is a typical seasonal pattern before numbers trail off, said Kari Lenander, executive director of the Border Servant Corps, a New Mexico-based nonprofit that provides migrant aid.
"In fact, numbers have decreased not only in the El Paso Sector but also border-wide," she said.
Two Border Patrol sectors are seeing the majority of the crossings in the first days of the year, the San Diego Sector in California and the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, according to the Customs and Border Protection official.
The Border Patrol encounters don't include the migrants processed each day by U.S. customs officers at ports of entry. The Customs and Border Protection takes up to 1,450 appointments daily via the Biden administration's CBP One app, which migrants can use to make an appointment to seek asylum.
Migration swings from record highs to record lows
The number of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has swung dramatically during the administration of President Joe Biden, surging to record highs in 2022 and 2023 before dropping in the administration's final year to levels not seen since the first Trump administration.
U.S. Border Patrol reported more than 2 million migrant encounters per year each in fiscal 2022 and 2023, numbers that fueled criticism by Republicans about the administration's record on border security. Encounters dropped to 1.5 million in fiscal 2024, which ended in September.
Migrant encounters hit a historic one-month record above 249,000 in December 2023 – prompting the Biden administration to shut down key ports of entry with Mexico in a move to get Mexico to do more to enforce its own borders.
In December 2024, the U.S. Border Patrol reported 47,300 encounters, a more than 80% decline year over year.
"This sustained success is the result of strong border enforcement, extensive engagement with our foreign partners and the delivery of safe and lawful pathways that continue to provide humanitarian relief under our laws,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Paste BN in an emailed statement.
Biden worked with Mexico to increase its enforcement of migrant routes north. Then, in June, the administration sharply restricted access to asylum between ports of entry, while continuing to process asylum-seekers via CBP One appointments at the ports. The number of encounters between ports of entry fell by a third after the asylum restrictions and has held near that level for six months.
At the same time, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ramped up deportations in fiscal 2024 to the highest level since the Obama administration.
The administration also began providing aid to Panama to increase its repatriation flights and crack down on illegal crossings through the Darien Gap, a jungle route many migrants take from South America, headed for the U.S. border.
"None of these things is long-term," said Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America.
"Now, the new phenomenon is the arrival of Donald Trump. I think people are going to wait for the next few months to see what happens," before deciding whether they attempt to cross the border, he said.
President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has promised to "seal the border" and launch a mass deportation as part of his signature campaign promise to reduce unlawful immigration.
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(This story has been updated to add new information.)
Lauren Villagran can be reached at lvillagran@usatoday.com.