Adam Isacson

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Developments

This month will mark two years since the Biden administration inaugurated a program allowing citizens of Venezuela to reside in the United States with a two-year humanitarian parole status. Now, CBS News revealed, the administration does not plan to allow Venezuelan citizens to renew their humanitarian parole. If they do not seek to adjust their status, Venezuelan parole recipients will find themselves in legal limbo, subject to removal should the government in Caracas allow deportation flights to resume.

The parole program allows people to apply online from elsewhere and arrive by air, avoiding the U.S.-Mexico border. It has been available for up to a combined 30,000 citizens a year of Venezuela and, after January 2023, of Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua, who have valid passports and U.S.-based sponsors. Mexico used the program’s existence to justify accepting up to 30,000 monthly land-border deportations of those countries’ citizens.

Venezuelans who arrived in the United States before July 2023 are eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status, a non-permanent but firmer documented status. As a result, for the next eight or nine months at least, most Venezuelans facing expiration of their parole have another option. It is unclear what might happen after that, or what might happen to citizens of Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua whose two-year statuses will begin to expire in January. The outcome of the November 2024 election will be a big factor.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “U.S. Won’t Extend Legal Status for Venezuelan Migrants Who Arrived Under Biden Program” (CBS News, October 3, 2024).

Mexico began reckoning with an October 1 killing of six migrants by Mexican Army soldiers in the southern state of Chiapas. Another 10 were wounded.

That evening, soldiers chased, then fired on, a pickup truck carrying 33 migrants about 50 miles inland from the Guatemala border. Mexico’s Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) claimed that the vehicle “evaded military personnel” and that soldiers heard “detonations.”

Mexico’s newly inaugurated president, Claudia Sheinbaum, called the incident “deplorable,” adding, “a situation like this cannot be repeated.” Sheinbaum said that civilian prosecutors are questioning the two soldiers who fired their weapons; they have not yet been charged with anything.

Mexico’s Senate began its Thursday session with a moment of silence for the shooting’s victims.

The Human Mobility Pastoral, part of the Episcopal Conference of Mexico’s Catholic church, condemned the shooting as “the consequence of the militarization of migration policy and a greater presence of the armed forces on the southern border.” Added a statement from numerous Mexican human rights organizations: “Mexico has chosen to implement a migration policy without a human rights focus, making use of military forces, such as the National Guard, the Navy or the Army, as mechanisms for migration control.”

• Mark Stevenson, “6 Migrants From Egypt, Peru and Honduras Die Near Guatemalan Border After Mexican Soldiers Open Fire” (Associated Press, Associated Press, October 3, 2024).
• Patrick J. Mcdonnell, “Mexico Vows Inquiry After Soldiers Fire on U.S.-Bound Migrants, Killing Six” (The Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2024).
• Graciela Olvera, “Episcopado Mexicano Condena Muerte de Migrantes en Chiapas” (Milenio (Mexico), October 3, 2024).
• “Asesinato de Migrantes en Chiapas Es “Consecuencia de las Politicas Migratorias” del Estado Mexicano: Colectivo de Monitoreo–Frontera Sur” (Desinformemonos, October 3, 2024).
• “Claudia Sheinbaum Condena Muerte de Migrantes Abatidos por Soldados Mexicanos al Ser “Confundidos” Con Narcotraficantes” (La Hora (Guatemala), October 3, 2024).
• “Religiosos Piden a Sheinbaum una Frontera «Fraterna» y No «Militarizada»” (EFE, Efecto Cocuyo (Venezuela), October 3, 2024).
• Gabriela Coutino, “Cuatro Migrantes Atacados por el Ejercito Son Dados de Alta y Dos Mas Estan Graves” (Proceso (Mexico), October 3, 2024).
• Lliliana Padilla, Silvia Arellano, “Senado Guarda un Minuto de Silencio por Migrantes Fallecidos” (Milenio (Mexico), October 3, 2024).

At a September 30 meeting of the Texas House Committee on State Affairs, Texas Public Radio reported, a court administration official revealed that U.S. citizens were 72 percent of those accused of smuggling immigrants in the state between May 2023 and April 2024. Less than 10 percent were from Mexico.

• Julián Aguilar, “Texas Lawmakers Told Most People Accused of Smuggling Migrants Into State Are U.S. Citizens” (Texas Public Radio, October 3, 2024).

The conservative news website The Center Square published unofficial data indicating that Border Patrol apprehended at least 1,525,210 migrants in fiscal year 2024, which ended on September 30. This number, however, seems slightly low: it would indicate that Border Patrol apprehended just 48,505 migrants in September (the agency’s reported October-August total was 1,476,705). Other sources have reported that September’s apprehensions totaled about 54,000.

• Bethany Blankley, “Exclusive: At Least 1.5 Million Illegal Southwest Border Crossers Reported in fy24” (The Center Square, October 3, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

In the first of a series about regional human rights and democracy challenges for the next U.S. administration, WOLA published five sets of principles to guide border and migration policy. They cover human rights and accountability, upholding asylum, comprehensive immigration reform, root causes, and regional cooperation and integration.

• “Migration: Five Policies That Protect Human Rights and Human Dignity” (Washington Office on Latin America, October 3, 2024).

In a Wilson Center interview, journalist Molly O’Toole explored how global migration patterns are transforming due to U.S. policies, economic conditions, and environmental crises. That is the overarching subject of O’Toole’s forthcoming book The Route, which traces migration from Brazil to the U.S.-Mexico border. “It’s very difficult to think of a policy that the U.S. could conceive of that could stop people who are willing to die in order to make it,” she pointed out.

• Molly O’Toole, “Global Migration And “The Route” to the US” (Woodrow Wilson Center, October 3, 2024).

By declaring Mexican and Venezuelan criminal groups to be “terrorist organizations”—something the federal government has not done—Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is carrying out a parallel foreign policy, noted an analysis by Francesca D’Annunzio at the Texas Observer.

• Francesca D’Annunzio, “Abbott’s Border ‘Theatrics’ Now Include Acting Like the State Department” (The Texas Observer, October 3, 2024).

“Democrats have traveled a long arc in the last four years,” reads a New York Times newsletter from Hamed Aleaziz. “When Biden took office, he spoke warmly of migrants seeking asylum and even tried to pause deportations altogether. (A court said no.) As his political fortunes sank, he turned toward deterring migrants. Finally, in June, he took a hard line.”

• Hamed Aleaziz, “A Crackdown” (The New York Times, October 4, 2024).

“The effect of immigration on wages is one of the most thoroughly studied topics in empirical economics, and the results are clear: Immigrants do not make native-born workers worse off, and probably make them better off,” explained Rogé Karma in an Atlantic essay.

• Roge Karma, “The Truth About Immigration and the American Worker” (The Atlantic, October 3, 2024).

On the Right

• Phillip Linderman, “How to Break the Sanctuary States” (Center for Immigration Studies, The American Conservative, October 4, 2024).

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Developments

Mexican Army soldiers chased, then fired on, a truck carrying 33 migrants on the evening of October 1, killing 6 of them and wounding 12. The incident took place on the Pacific coastal highway in Huixtla, Chiapas, about 50 miles from Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

Mexico’s Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) issued a statement claiming that the migrants’ truck “evaded military personnel,” who suspected that it was tied to organized crime, which has become much more active in the state of Chiapas over the past year. That alone does not justify use of lethal force; the SEDENA statement contended that soldiers fired at the truck after hearing “detonations.”

The deceased victims were reportedly from Nepal, Egypt and Pakistan. Other migrants aboard the vehicle, including some of the wounded, came from Cuba, India, and what SEDENA called “Arab nationalities.” The Foreign Ministry of Peru claimed that one of the six fatalities was a Peruvian citizen.

SEDENA stated that the two soldiers who fired their weapons have been removed from their posts, and that both the civilian and military justice systems’ prosecutors are investigating. The incident heightens concerns about the Mexican government’s expanding placement of combat-trained soldiers in internal law-enforcement roles.

“People in mobility are exposed to great risks during their journey, that is why it is essential to have legal ways of access, transit and integration to avoid tragedies like this,” read a brief statement from UNHCR.

• “Sedena Informa Sobre Hechos Ocurridos en Chiapas” (Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• Antonio Zebadua, “Disparan Militares a Migrantes en Villa Comaltitlan; 6 Muertos y 12 Heridos” (El Diario del Sur (Chiapas Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• Emiliano Rodriguez Mega, James Wagner, “Mexican Military Fatally Shoots Six Migrants” (The New York Times, October 2, 2024).
• Edgar H. Clemente, “6 Migrants Shot Dead Near Guatemalan Border When Mexican Army Troops Open Fire” (Associated Press, Associated Press, October 2, 2024).
• Lizbeth Diaz, “Six Migrants Die After Mexican Soldiers Fire on Pick-Up Truck” (Reuters, Reuters, October 2, 2024).
• “Mexican Soldiers Kill Six After Opening Fire on Truck Carrying Migrants” (Al Jazeera, October 3, 2024).
• Rob Corp, “Six Migrants Killed After Mexico Soldiers Open Fire” (BBC (UK), October 2, 2024).
• Angel Hernandez, “Peruano Murio en Agresion de Soldados a Migrantes en Chiapas” (Milenio (Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• Gabriela Coutino, “El Ejercito Mata en Chiapas a Migrantes de Egipto, Nepal y Pakistan” (Proceso (Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• Gloria Leticia DÍaz, “La Sedena Responsabiliza a Dos Soldados de los Disparos Contra Migrantes en Chiapas” (Proceso (Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• Gabriela Coutino, “Oim y Acnur Expresan su Preocupacion por Asesinato de Migrantes a Manos del Ejercito” (Proceso (Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• “Mata el Ejercito a Seis Migrantes en Chiapas al “Confundirlos”Con Crimen Organizado; Hay 10 Lesionados Mas” (Animal Politico (Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• Carlos Alvarez Acevedo, “Militares Asesinan a 6 Migrantes en Chiapas; Los Confundieron Con Delincuentes” (Revista Zeta (Tijuana Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• Fernando Ortiz, “Muerte-de-Migrantes en Operativo-Militar en-Chiapas-Preocupa a-Onu” (Milenio (Mexico), October 2, 2024).
• Mauricio Ortiz, “Indagan a Militares por Muerte de Migrantes en Huixtla, Chiapas” (Milenio (Mexico), October 2, 2024).

Border Report pointed out new FBI data showing that violent crime rates in Texas border cities are lower than the average for all cities. All Texas border communities have homicide rates below the 2023 U.S. national average of 5.7 per 100,000 inhabitants.

• Sandra Sanchez, “Texas Border Communities Again Safer From Violent Crimes, New Fbi Data Shows” (Border Report, October 2, 2024).

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) annual Homeland Threat Assessment document, released October 2, warned that “over the next year, we expect some individuals with terrorism ties and some criminal actors will continue their efforts to exploit migration flows and the complex border security environment to enter the United States.”

• “Dhs’ 2025 Homeland Threat Assessment Indicates the Threat of Domestic and Foreign Terrorism in the Homeland Remains High” (Department of Homeland Security, October 2, 2024).
• Louis Casiano, “Illegal Immigrants With ‘Terrorism Ties’ Will Continue to Exploit Border, Homeland Security Report Warns” (Fox News, October 3, 2024).
• Victor Nava, “Dhs Threat Report Warns Migrants With ‘Terrorism Ties’ Will Continue to Exploit Border Crisis” (The New York Post, October 2, 2024).

In Washington, DC district court, a Trump-appointed judge ruled that the Biden administration violated environmental law when it halted border-wall construction in 2021. Judge Trevor McFadden argued that Biden’s border policies encouraged more migration, and migrants littered trash in border areas.

• Andrew Stanton, “Trump Judge Rules Biden Canceling Border Wall Broke Environmental Law” (Newsweek, October 2, 2024).

NewsNation reported, based on an internal Border Patrol alert, that the Northeast Cartel, active in parts of Mexico’s border state of Tamaulipas across from south Texas, has been using electronic devices to disrupt the agency’s surveillance drones.

• Ali Bradley, Jeff Arnold, “Mexican Cartels Using Devices to Disrupt U.S. Drones” (NewsNation, October 2, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

The American Immigration Council (AIC) released a report about the potential cost of massively deporting undocumented migrants from the United States, which is a core campaign promise of Republican candidate Donald Trump.

It estimated that arresting, detaining, processing, and removing a million undocumented migrants each year would cost an annual total of $88 billion. It would total at least $315 billion for a one-time operation and $967.9 billion for a decade-long campaign.

Deporting about 4 percent of the U.S. workforce would cause the nation’s gross domestic product to “drop anywhere from 4.2% to 6.8%,” the AIC found; that is more than during the 2007-2009 “Great Recession.”

The report’s scope did not extend to the harder-to-quantify costs to human rights and democratic institutions that a mass-deportation campaign might entail, or the harm to U.S. civil-military relations if such a campaign were to mobilize Defense Department resources and personnel.

• “Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy” (American Immigration Council, October 2, 2024).
• Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, “New Report Shows the Devastating Costs of Mass Deportation” (American Immigration Council, October 2, 2024).

The ACLU has filed suit in federal court to obtain results of a Freedom of Information Act request about federal government capacity, and potential costs, of a “mass deportation” effort.

• Lauren Villagran, “Aclu Sues Feds, Questions Infrastructure for Mass Deportation” (USA Today, October 2, 2024).

The Associated Press fact-checked a column graph of U.S.-Mexico border migrant apprehensions that Republican candidate Donald Trump frequently displays at campaign events; he was gesturing at it when a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his ear at a July campaign event. The chart includes errors and distortions, including a marker showing Trump leaving office in April 2020, the first full month of the COVID pandemic, when migration plummeted. Trump in fact left office in January 2021, after several months of increased migrant apprehensions.

• Adriana Gomez Licon, “How Trump Credits an Immigration Chart for Saving His Life — and What the Chart Is Missing” (Associated Press, Associated Press, October 3, 2024).

Washington Post columnist Philip Bump rebutted claims, including those made by JD Vance in Tuesday’s vice-presidential candidates’ debate, that migrants are contributing to crime, fentanyl smuggling, and higher U.S. housing costs. PolitiFact, the Associated Press, and Melvis Acosta at Mother Jones addressed other spurious claims made in the debate, including Vance’s allegation that DHS has “effectively lost” 320,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

• Philip Bump, “Republicans Keep Inventing New Ways to Scapegoat Immigrants” (The Washington Post, October 2, 2024).
• “2024 Vp Debate: Fact-Checking Jd Vance and Tim Walz” (PolitiFact, October 2, 2024).
• Melvis Acosta, “Don’t Let Vance Fool You—Trump Would Separate Millions of Families.” (Mother Jones, October 2, 2024).

The Project on Government Oversight published allegations that DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari, a key official for oversight of border security agencies, has engaged in a prolonged effort to undermine investigations into his own misconduct, especially claims of whistleblower retaliation. Cuffari is under investigation by the Integrity Committee, a federal panel that oversees inspectors-general, for retaliating against whistleblowers who reported delays in DHS reports, including a report on migrant family separations.

• Nick Schwellenbach, “A Watchdog’s War on Oversight” (Project on Government Oversight, October 2, 2024).

On the Right

• Robert Henneke, “Harris Really Does Have a Magic Wand for the Border” (Texas Public Policy Foundation, The Hill, October 2, 2024).
• Joseph Curl, “Why Democrats Have Opened America’s Southern Border” (The Washington Times, October 2, 2024).

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Developments

The border and migration were the third topic that CBS News moderators posed to candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz in last night’s vice-presidential debate.

Asked about the Trump campaign’s “mass deportation” plans, Vance replied that, if elected, Donald Trump would first focus on deporting migrants with criminal records in the United States; the Ohio Senator did not address the question’s inquiry about whether it would separate families. Vance blamed Walz’s running mate, Kamala Harris, and President Joe Biden for “94 executive orders suspending deportations, decriminalizing illegal aliens, massively increasing the asylum fraud that exists in our system, that has opened the floodgates,” and sought to tie that to fentanyl smuggling.

Walz, the governor of Minnesota, repeated the Harris campaign’s charge that Donald Trump torpedoed a compromise bipartisan border-security bill in February 2024 by urging Republican senators to vote against it. That bill, the “Border Act of 2024,” failed in the Senate after months of negotiations between a group of Democratic and Republican senators. As it sought Republican buy-in, that bill included tougher provisions than Democrats would normally support, like severe limits on asylum access between ports of entry, more migrant detention capacity, and expenditure of Trump-era border wall funds. Vance did not address the “Border Act,” which he voted against.

Walz incorrectly claimed that Donald Trump built “less than 2 percent” of border wall (the net increase in fenced-off miles was about 4 percent, but Trump built new pedestrian fencing over 14 percent of the border). Vance incorrectly claimed that there are “20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country” (there were 11 million in 2022); that “we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost” (32,000 children—starting in 2019, when Trump was president—have missed immigration hearings but aren’t necessarily “missing,” while another 291,000 haven’t been issued Notices to Appear but aren’t “missing”); and that the CBP One program is illegal (it employs humanitarian parole, a presidential authority dating back to 1952). As has been documented by a Cato Institute review of obtained official documents, among other sources, the vast majority of fentanyl is smuggled by U.S. citizens, or by non-citizens with border-crossing credentials who are not migrants.

The segment ended with CBS moderator Margaret Brennan fact-checking Vance’s claim that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio are not legally in the United States (nearly all have documentation, mainly humanitarian parole or Temporary Protected Status). “The rules were that you guys were going to fact check,” Vance complained; the border-migration discussion ended when moderators muted the candidates’ microphones.

• “Read the Full Vp Debate Transcript From the Walz-Vance Showdown” (CBS News, October 2, 2024).
• Anna Giaritelli, “Vance Outlines Trump Mass Deportation Plan at Debate” (The Washington Examiner, October 1, 2024).
• Stephen Dinan, “Walz Complains Trump Only Built 2% of Border Wall” (The Washington Times, October 1, 2024).
• Pema Levy, “Vance Says He’s Pro-Family. Just Not Keeping Families Together.” (Mother Jones, October 1, 2024).
• Ashleigh Jackson, “Vance Called Harris a ‘Border Czar’ During the Vp Debate. What Does That Mean?” (Nexstar, The Hill, October 1, 2024).
• “Culpan a Harris y Trump de Crisis Migratoria en Debate de Walz y Vance” (EFE, Milenio (Mexico), October 1, 2024).

The Venezuelan daily Tal Cual reported that while in Mexico to speak on a panel, a Cuban vice minister of labor and social security got a CBP One appointment at the Arizona border, was released into the United States, and now has a date to appear in immigration court in August 2026.

• “Viceministro de Trabajo Cubano Pidio Asilo en Estados Unidos” (Tal Cual (Venezuela), October 1, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Departed Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s “control of the migration valve may have insulated his government from Washington’s meddling,” Eduardo Porter wrote at the Washington Post. “But that tense, unstable equilibrium is unlikely to survive under the government of López Obrador’s anointed successor Claudia Sheinbaum.”

• Eduardo Porter, “Whom Does Mexico Favor in November?” (The Washington Post, October 1, 2024).

On the Right

• Andy Biggs, “Gop Rep: Kamala Refused to Face Her Failure at the Border” (Newsweek, October 1, 2024).

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Developments

The Biden administration published a revised proclamation and a final rule tightening restrictions, first issued on June 4, on migrants’ ability to access the U.S. asylum system without making appointments at official border crossings (ports of entry). Since then, most who cross between the ports of entry and enter Border Patrol custody are ineligible for asylum.

The rule’s first version revoked asylum access whenever the daily average of Border Patrol’s migrant apprehensions exceeds 2,500 over a 7-day period, and would have restored asylum when Border Patrol apprehensions fall below 1,500 over a 7-day period, excluding unaccompanied children.

The new version cements the asylum restrictions further: the daily average would now have to remain below 1,500 per day over 28 days—not 7—and unaccompanied children now count toward the total.

According to Border Patrol data from July, August, and (preliminarily) September, the agency averaged 1,831 apprehensions per day during those months, including 194 unaccompanied children per day (in July and August). That is well over the 1,500-per-day threshold below which apprehensions would need to fall, over 28 days, in order to “turn back on” the right to seek asylum again between ports of entry.

Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act guarantees the right to seek asylum to all who are physically present in the United States “whether or not at a designated port of arrival.”

• “A Proclamation on Amending Proclamation 10773” (The White House, September 30, 2024).
• “Securing the Border” (Executive Office for Immigration Review, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Federal Register, September 30, 2024).
• “Fact Sheet: Joint Dhs-Doj Final Rule Issued to Restrict Asylum Eligibility for Those Who Enter During High Encounters at the Southern Border” (Department of Homeland Security, September 30, 2024).
• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Biden Shores Up Asylum Limits, Likely Extending Border Crackdown Indefinitely” (CBS News, September 30, 2024).
• Nick Miroff, “Biden Expands Asylum Restrictions That Sharply Curbed Border Crossings” (The Washington Post, September 30, 2024).
• Rafael Bernal, Rebecca Beitsch, “Biden Administration Expands Asylum Restrictions at Southern Border” (The Hill, September 30, 2024).
• Hamed Aleaziz, “Biden Expands Asylum Restrictions at the Southern Border” (The New York Times, September 30, 2024).
• Ellen M. Gilmer, “Biden Locks in Asylum Curbs as Democrats Combat Border Flak” (Bloomberg Law, September 30, 2024).
• Rebecca Santana, “Biden Administration Doubles Down on Tough Asylum Restrictions at Border” (Associated Press, Associated Press, September 30, 2024).
• Sandra Sanchez, “Dhs Increases Amount of Time Asylum Regulations at Southwest Border in Effect” (Border Report, September 30, 2024).
• “‘Cruel’: Biden Administration Toughens Asylum Restrictions at Us Border” (Al Jazeera, September 30, 2024).
• “Eeuu Consolida Restricciones al Asilo en la Frontera, a un Mes de las Elecciones Generales” (EFE, Efecto Cocuyo (Venezuela), September 30, 2024).

The UN Refugee Agency voiced “profound concern” about the tightened asylum regulation, which “severely curtails access to protection for people fleeing conflict, persecution, and violence, putting many refugees and asylum seekers in grave danger without a viable option for seeking safety.”

• Matthew Reynolds, “Unhcr Reiterates Concern About Us Asylum Regulations” (UN Refugee Agency, September 30, 2024).

CNN reported that Border Patrol was on track to apprehend about 54,000 migrants (1,800 per day) at the border during the month of September. That would be down slightly from 56,399 (1,819 per day) in July and 58,038 (1,872 per day) in August.

• Priscilla Alvarez, “Migrant Crossings at the Us’ Southern Border Drop Again Amid Campaign Year Scrutiny” (CNN, September 30, 2024).

A criminal organization in the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, Mexico—near Yuma, Arizona—placed 24 surveillance cameras on telephone poles, wiring them into power lines for electricity and into telephone lines for internet connectivity.

• “Surveillance Cameras Placed on Palm Trees by Drug Cartel “Falcons” in City on Border With Arizona, Mexico Authorities Say” (CBS News, September 30, 2024).

Migrants—some seeking or awaiting CBP One appointments—in Mexico’s southern border-zone city of Tapachula, Chiapas, participated in a procession organized by the local Catholic diocese. They called for protection from organized crime and faster asylum adjudication from the Mexican government’s Refugee Assistance Commission (COMAR).

• Jhonatan Gonzalez, “Migrantes Piden Mayor Seguridad a los Gobiernos Entrantes” (Milenio (Mexico), September 30, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

In Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector, where agents have recovered the remains of a local record 175 migrants in fiscal 2024, USA Today’s Lauren Villagrán reported on the mental health toll that deaths and unsuccessful rescues take on personnel.

• Lauren Villagran, “Haunted by Migrant Deaths, Border Patrol Agents Face Mental Health Toll” (USA Today, October 1, 2024).

Analyses from the Washington Post and CBS News explained how the Trump campaign and other Republican politicians have been distorting and misinterpreting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data released in response to an inquiry from border-district Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas). That data points to 13,099 immigrants with homicide convictions on ICE’s “non-detained” docket, which simply means that they are not in ICE’s custody though they may be imprisoned elsewhere.

The vast majority of these individuals did not cross the border during the Biden presidency. Still, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) told CBS’s Face the Nation that the Biden administration “released more than 13,000 convicted murderers who illegally entered this country.”

• Philip Bump, “The Right’s Newest False Outrage Centers on Misrepresented Federal Data” (The Washington Post, September 30, 2024).
• Mariana Alfaro, Nick Miroff, “How Trump Is Distorting Immigration and Crime Data in New Attacks on Harris” (The Washington Post, September 30, 2024).
• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Trump and Allies Mischaracterize Data on Immigrants With Criminal Convictions. Here’s Context on What the Numbers Actually Show.” (CBS News, September 30, 2024).

In recent days, Donald Trump’s “rhetoric about migrants has grown even darker and more foreboding,” wrote Mark Follman at Mother Jones. Migrants, he said at a Wisconsin rally, “are stone-cold killers. They’ll walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”

• Mark Follman, “Trump Is Amplifying His Dangerous Hate Speech Against Migrants” (Mother Jones, September 30, 2024).

On the Right

• Nicole Russell, “Abbott Says Harris ‘Failed Miserably’ on Border Crisis. He’s Fixing It Instead.” (USA Today, October 1, 2024).
• Adam Bennett, “‘Operation Lone Star Has Been Successful’ | Texas Dps Director, Border Czar Defend Program, Tout Drop in Illegal Crossings” (KVUE (Austin Texas), September 30, 2024).