- Biden administration boasts of lowest number of border crossings since September 2020
The Biden administration released its latest border crossing numbers Friday night, showing that the number of migrants apprehended by Border Patrol in July fell by 32%. The federal government called it “the lowest number since September 2020.”
The stunning decline in the number of migrants crossing the border comes four years after the worst border crisis the U.S. has ever seen, with historic numbers of migrants arriving at the border to try to get in, including huge numbers of asylum seekers.
More than 10 million migrants have entered the U.S. since October 2021, according to federal statistics, putting a strain on federal agencies that host migrants and bringing border communities like El Paso, Texas, to their knees.
The sixth-largest city in Texas was under a state of emergency for more than a year, as at its peak, 2,400 migrants passed through the city each day. At one point, it even started its own charter program to get migrants off the streets and into cities where the migrants really wanted to go, like New York and Chicago.
According to border expert Adam Isacson of The Washington Office on Latin America, two tough measures are responsible for the change.
The quiet border at El Paso, Texas, as the number of migrants has declined in recent weeks
“It’s a combination: Mexico is making it harder to travel through Mexico and the U.S. is making it harder to get asylum if you ‘cross the border wrong,’” he explained.
Since January, the Mexican government has stepped up measures to stop migrants, mainly from South and Central America, from traveling through the country to the US.
Under pressure from the Biden administration, Mexican officials have set up checkpoints to detect migrants on buses and trains heading north and return them to the Mexico-Guatemala border.
In June the White House has announced changes how migrants could apply for asylum at the border.
Any migrant who enters the US illegally will be deported and will not be allowed to apply for asylum.
Migrants crossed the Rio Bravo River near El Paso in 2022 on their way to report to U.S. border patrol and seek asylum
Until then, even people who crossed the border illegally could simply go to a border patrol, surrender themselves and ask to start an asylum application.
Biden’s change in asylum policy has had a real impact on the ground, with the number of border crossings through El Paso dropping from about 1,000 per day before the announcement to just 398 per day now, Border Patrol officials said.
In the West Texas city, the number of so-called “give-ups” — migrants who cross the border to surrender and seek asylum — has changed from one where there is much more traditional traffic: migrants sneaking in and trying to evade Border Patrol.
Migrants seeking asylum must now wait in Mexico until they can secure a CBP One appointment at a U.S. border crossing, the “legal route” to enter the country.
However, only 1,450 appointments are available each day and it often takes weeks or months to secure the coveted appointments, assuming no migrants are abducted or murdered in the process.
Migrants speak with a border agent near El Paso on December 16, 2022
A migrant from Michoacan, Mexico, uses the CBPOne app on Tuesday, January 24, 2023, in Tijuana, Mexico.
Mexican border towns where migrants wait to be released have become hotbeds of cruelty for migrants, making them easy targets for gangs seeking to ransom them, sell them as sex slaves or kill them.
Biden’s asylum rule, however, has already been challenged by organizations like the ACLU and others, which is why Isacson believes the president took so long to implement the rule.
“This is a really dubious legal rule. The ability to deny asylum between different border crossings violates section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that you can apply for asylum regardless of whether you entered through a border crossing or not,” he explained.