Adam Isacson

Defense, security, borders, migration, and human rights in Latin America and the United States. May not reflect my employer’s consensus view.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: April 18, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

  • Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Case and Nayib Bukele’s Washington visit: A high-stakes legal battle continues between the federal courts and the Trump administration over the case of a Salvadoran man who was wrongly deported and sent to a notorious mega-prison in his home country. During an Oval Office visit, the country’s authoritarian-trending president struck a defiant tone alongside President Trump, calling into question the administration’s compliance with a Supreme Court requirement that it “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) met Abrego Garcia briefly during a visit to El Salvador.
  • The Alien Enemies Act: Evidence continues to show that most of the 238 Venezuelan men sent to the Salvadoran mega-prison on March 15 faced no allegations of criminal activity or gang ties. A judge who had sought to stop their removal is now considering whether to hold Trump administration officials in contempt of court.
  • The Roosevelt Reservation and other military developments: The White House has declared that a 20-yard fringe of territory along the border in California, Arizona, and New Mexico is now the equivalent of a “military installation.” This raises important questions about the role of the U.S. military on U.S. soil. As is widely expected, these questions will deepen if the administration invokes the Insurrection Act of 1807.
  • March migration data show further declines: With 7,181 Border Patrol apprehensions, March 2025 was one of the quietest months at the U.S.-Mexico border since the 1960s. The main reason is the Trump administration’s shutdown of asylum access at the border. The ratio of uniformed personnel at the border to March migrant apprehensions is now about 4.6 to 1.
  • Mass deportation and the coming “reconciliation” funding bill: Congress is edging closer to considering a massive budget bill that would multiply the U.S. government’s ability to deport undocumented migrants on an enormous scale. The Trump administration’s unstated goal appears to be 1 million deportations during its first year, which seems unlikely. Meanwhile, the administration is rapidly undoing documented statuses granted by the Biden administration.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: April 11, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

  • El Salvador renditions reach the Supreme Court: The Supreme Court made two rulings related to the Trump administration’s practice of sending migrants to a mega-prison in El Salvador. The first requires that people subjected to rapid expulsion under the Alien Enemies Act have a reasonable chance to defend themselves. The second upholds, though softens, a lower-court judge’s requirement that the administration seek the release and return of a wrongfully expelled Salvadoran man. The President of El Salvador is to visit Washington on April 14.
  • Evidence points to little criminality among those rushed to El Salvador’s mega-prison: As experts cast doubt on tattoos as a sign of Venezuelan gang membership, three studies indicate that a substantial majority of those rendered to El Salvador had no known criminal records.
  • A $45 billion bill for migrant detention foreseen as budget bill moves slowly through Congress: A request for proposals issued to contractors foresees ramping up migrant detention spending sixfold, to $45 billion over two years. That would be paid for by a giant one-time appropriation slowly working through the Republican-majority Congress, which cleared an important initial hurdle this week.
  • New measures to undo legal pathways and punish the undocumented: This week saw CBP One app recipients receive an order to self-deport, a proposal to fine migrants up to $998 per day if they stay after receiving removal orders, movement toward a registry of undocumented migrants, and a continued legal fight over Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelans.
  • A woman dies by suicide in Border Patrol custody as internal oversight is decimated: A female citizen of China died by suicide in a California Border Patrol station. This and other recent incidents raise questions about oversight at a time when the Trump administration has effectively closed down the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) internal investigative agencies.
  • Notes on the impact in Mexico: Media reports covered the situation of migrants stranded in Mexico by the Trump administration’s revocation of asylum access at the border, including Venezuelans requesting repatriation flights and Haitians who are especially vulnerable to harm.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: April 4, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

  • The Alien Enemies Act invocation and El Salvador renditions have days in court: The Trump administration sent 17 more detained people—10 Salvadorans and 7 Venezuelans—from Guantánamo to El Salvador’s Center for Containment of Terrorism (CECOT) prison. Federal courts are probing violations of a restraining order against the use of the Alien Enemies Act, as we continue to learn about people removed to the Salvadoran prison despite a lack of criminal background. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recognized that at least one man, Kilmar Ábrego García, was removed in error, but the administration is not asking El Salvador to release him.
  • Notes about deportation flights: A Boston federal judge barred the Trump administration from deporting migrants to third countries without allowing them to argue that they might be harmed. Deportation flights to Venezuela have resumed. Reports highlight unsafe conditions and abuse aboard ICE’s deportation flights with little accountability or transparency.
  • Budget resolution to move in Senate: The Senate is preparing to vote on a budget resolution that sets the stage for a larger spending bill advancing President Trump’s “mass deportation” and border-hardening agenda. The forthcoming “reconciliation” bill could allocate $90–175 billion over 10 years for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Passed by a simple majority, it would bypass the filibuster and exclude Democrats.
  • Notes on the U.S. military’s border and migration role: The U.S. military presence at the border has grown to over 6,700 active-duty troops, expected to grow to 10,000. Roles and equipment are expanding, and the price tag since January 20 is now $376 million since January 20. The Guantánamo base now holds about 85 migrants at a very high cost. Senators visiting the base criticized it as a wasteful, likely illegal attempt to bypass due process.
  • Low border numbers in March: Border Patrol recorded 7,180 migrant apprehensions in March, the lowest monthly total in decades, amid a near-total shutdown of asylum access. Shelters are empty, aid groups are scaling back, and migrant injuries from wall falls have declined. In Panama, migration through the Darién Gap plummeted to less than 200 in March.
  • Noem’s travel to Latin America: Homeland Security Secretary Kristie Noem visited El Salvador, Colombia, and Mexico. Her appearance at El Salvador’s CECOT, shooting a video using jailed people as a backdrop,  drew criticism. In Colombia, Noem signed a biometric data-sharing agreement. In Mexico, she claimed some progress toward a similar deal.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: March 21, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Note: next week’s Border Update may be delayed by possible (still unconfirmed) staff congressional testimony.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

  • Invocation of Alien Enemies Act raises due process, democracy, and foreign relations concerns: The Trump administration has employed a 227-year-old law to expel hundreds of Venezuelan men to El Salvador’s feared prison system without due process and in likely defiance of a judicial order to divert the aircraft carrying them. As officials resist supplying a federal court with basic information about the incident, legal analysts warn of a constitutional crisis.
  • U.S. military presence at the border continues to expand: The administration may be planning to declare a 60-foot buffer zone along much of the border to be a “military installation,” allowing soldiers to “hold” migrants there. A Navy destroyer is to carry out a mission where the border meets the Gulf of Mexico.
  • Travel ban appears imminent: In a much larger version of a “travel ban” implemented during Donald Trump’s first term, his administration may soon ban the arrival of 43 countries’ citizens to the United States, dividing them into three tiers of prohibition.
  • Border wall construction resuming: The administration is using funds appropriated in 2021 to build seven miles of border wall in south Texas, potentially including a segment running through a private butterfly reserve. “Gap-filling” projects are getting underway near Nogales, Arizona, and San Diego, California.
  • Notes on Congress: Congressional Democrats issued letters protesting the administration’s renewed use of family detention and termination of Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans. ICE is warning Congress of a $2 billion budget shortfall for fiscal 2025.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Timeline of What Appears to be Defiance of a Judicial Order: Applying the Alien Enemies Act to Venezuelans Sent to El Salvador’s Prisons Without Due Process

On social media this morning I underwent a messy process of trying to piece together the timeline of what happened yesterday, as the Trump administration raced to get 238 Venezuelan citizens on planes headed straight for El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s prison system before a federal judge could stop them from using the Alien Enemies Act for that purpose.

The timeline does show that the planes landed well after Washington DC Federal District Judge James E. Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to stop that from happening. Social media is not a great place to explain that as new information emerges, because one can’t edit earlier posts.

Here is a timeline, last edited at 1:30PM Eastern on Tuesday, March 18. (I’ll change that time if I make further updates.)

  • Sometime Friday March 14: President Trump issues an executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, for the fourth time in US history, to allow the swift removal of Venezuelan citizens, regardless of migratory status, accused of membership in the Tren de Aragua criminal group. The Alien Enemies Act is meant to be a wartime jurisdiction, to be invoked at times of declared war, foreign invasion, or foreign “predatory incursion.” It includes no due process rights for those detained or deported, and the U.S. government is not required to prove a tie to Tren de Aragua. The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who has imprisoned nearly 3 percent of his country’s male population, offered on February 3 to jail non-Salvadorans whom the Trump administration sent to El Salvador.
  • Saturday, March 15: The American Civil Liberties Union and Democracy Forward seek a temporary restraining order to halt invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. The case is docketed as J.G.G. vs. Donald Trump.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 3:10pm and 3:40pm Eastern: Two ICE charter flights flown by contractor GlobalX are to leave Harlingen, Texas for San Salvador. These will be delayed. These weekend ICE flights are unusual.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 3:51pm Eastern: according to the page’s timestamp, the White House posts the executive order to its website.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 4:13pm Eastern: A third ICE charter flight flown by GlobalX is to leave Harlingen, Texas for Comayagua, Honduras. It, too, will be delayed.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 5:00pm Eastern: Judge Boasberg convenes a hearing in the J.G.G. vs. Trump case.
  • Saturday, March 15 at ~5:20pm Eastern: Judge Boasberg adjourns the hearing until 6:00pm to give the Department of Justice time to confirm whether flights carrying people under the Alien Enemies Act are underway or may depart soon.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 5:26pm Eastern: GlobalX flight 6143 departs Harlingen, Texas but its destination has changed to Comayagua, Honduras.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 5:45pm Eastern: GlobalX flight 6145 departs Harlingen, Texas; while the FlightAware app said it was heading for San Salvador, there is an alternate flight plan for Comayagua, Honduras. Subsequent reporting shows that this and the two other planes went to Comayagua: none flew directly to San Salvador. It is not clear why they made this stop en route.

  • Saturday, March 15 at ~6:05 Eastern: In a private aside, the Department of Justice apparently fails to confirm anything about flights to Judge Boasberg.
  • Saturday, March 15 at ~6:47pm Eastern: Judge Boasberg issues a temporary restraining order blocking application of the Alien Enemies Act. The New York Times reported: “Judge Boasberg said he was ordering the government to turn flights around given ‘information, unrebutted by the government, that flights are actively departing.’”
  • Saturday, March 15 at 7:26pm Eastern: A March 16 Justice Department notice refers to a “7:26 PM minute order” from Judge Boasberg.

At this point, all flights should have stopped or turned around.


  • Saturday, March 15 at 7:36pm Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6143 did not turn around: it lands in Comayagua, Honduras.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 7:37pm Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6122 departs Harlingen for Comayagua, Honduras.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 8:07pm Eastern: There are two flight plans filed for GlobalX Flight 6145. The one that turned out to be correct listed the plane landing at this time in Comayagua, Honduras.

  • Saturday, March 15 at 9:46pm Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6122 lands in Comayagua, Honduras.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 11:39pm Eastern: A Washington Post timeline shows a plane departing Comayagua, Honduras at 11:39pm.
  • Saturday, March 15 at 11:41pm Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6144 departs Comayagua, Honduras for San Salvador, El Salvador.

  • Sunday, March 16 at 12:06am Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6144 lands in San Salvador.
  • Sunday, March 16 at 12:10am Eastern: A Washington Post timeline shows a flight from Comayagua landing in San Salvador.
  • Sunday, March 16 at 12:41am Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6123 departs Comayagua, Honduras for San Salvador, El Salvador.

  • Sunday, March 16 at 1:04am Eastern: GlobalX Flight 6123 lands in San Salvador.
  • Sunday, March 16 at 7:46am Eastern: Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele tweets a screenshotted New York Post headline, “Fed judge orders deportation flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gangbangers to return to US” with the comment “Oopsie… Too late 😂.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio retweets this. (This timeline indicates that the judge was not, in fact, “too late.”)
  • Sunday, March 16 at 8:13am Eastern: Bukele posts footage of people arriving and being dragged off of planes by security forces in riot gear, then roughly herded into his government’s giant Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison. “Today,” Bukele writes, “the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. They were immediately transferred to CECOT, the Terrorism Confinement Center, for a period of one year (renewable). The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.”
Salvadoran government handout photo reproduced at the Washington Post.

  • Sunday, March 16 at 8:39am Eastern: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweets, “Thank you for your assistance and friendship, President Bukele.”
  • Sunday, March 16 at 3:46 PM Eastern: An Axios article by Marc Caputo reports that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem chose not to turn the planes around. Officials claimed to Caputo that they could ignore Judge Boasberg’s order because the planes were already over international waters. A correction added to the story reads, “This story was updated with the White House official’s claim that the administration had ignored the ruling but not defied it, because it came too late.” (This timeline makes clear that the order did not come too late.
  • Monday, March 17 during the 5:00PM hour, Eastern: Appearing before Judge Boasburg, Department of Justice attorneys refuse to answer basic questions about the flights detailed in this timeline.
  • Tuesday, March 18 mid-day: Acting ICE Harlingen Field Office Director Robert L. Cerna submits a statement to the court affirming that two of the flights were carrying all of the Venezuelans removed under the Alien Enemies Act proclamation, and that both were in the air by 7:25 PM on March 16, a minute before Judge Boasberg’s temporary restraining order appeared in writing. The statement seems to assume that the planes could not be called back once in the air, once over international waters, or once on the ground in Honduras—not their final destination—while still carrying out an ICE contract. These assumptions are far from settled.

Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: March 14, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

  • CBP publishes February border data: As the Trump administration shut down asylum access at the border and canceled the CBP One program, the number of people entering CBP custody at the border has plummeted. There are now at least four uniformed security personnel for every apprehended migrant. Migration is also way down in the Darién Gap. Fentanyl seizures are also very low.
  • “Mass deportation” updates: ICE arrested 32,809 people in the U.S. interior during the first 50 days of the Trump administration. Congress is considering budget measures to make deportations truly “massive.” ICE is increasingly targeting families as it reopens family detention facilities.
  • Active-duty deployment nears 9,600 soldiers: Troops keep arriving at the border, playing supporting roles.
  • Guantánamo base is currently empty: The entire population of 40 detainees at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station has been returned to the United States. The operation’s cost so far has averaged $55,000 per detainee.
  • The impact in Panama and elsewhere: On short-term visas, Panama’s government released 112 Asian, African, and European migrants whom the Trump administration had sent there despite their fears of return. It isn’t clear what their next steps are.
  • Congressional opponents grow more vocal: Letters and statements from congressional Democrats voiced more alarm and outrage about Trump administration anti-immigration measures, even as a CNN poll showed respondents narrowly approving of Trump’s performance on migration policy.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: March 7, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

  • Citing cross-border fentanyl trafficking, Trump again imposes and then withdraws tariffs on Mexico: President Trump followed up on a threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada. The main reason cited was production and trafficking of fentanyl, which has been declining, though it seems apparent that the President’s disdain for trade agreements is a larger factor. Trump later lifted tariffs on most goods for another month.
  • Vance brings cabinet members to Eagle Pass: Vice President Vance went to the border with the Homeland Security and Defense secretaries. His remarks focused mainly on organized crime in Mexico, not migration.
  • February saw the fewest Border Patrol migrant apprehensions this century, and perhaps since the 1960s: Donald Trump revealed that Border Patrol apprehended 8,326 migrants along the border in February, which would be the fewest since at least 2000, the earliest year for which public data are available. Monthly averages were lower than that from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s and during and before World War II. As occurred during the first months of Trump’s first term, migrants and smugglers are pausing their decisions to try to enter the country.
  • The U.S. military presence grows at the border: With the deployment of a Stryker brigade combat team and general support aviation battalion, the number of active-duty military personnel at the border will soon reach 9,000. The overall number of uniformed personnel could be over four times the number of monthly migrant apprehensions.
  • “Mass deportation” slows a bit, pending new money from Congress: Deportation flights increased modestly in February, and costly military flights have nearly halted since February 21. The Guantánamo Bay naval base is receiving fewer detainees amid cost concerns and interagency coordination issues. The White House is disappointed by its slow start, but a giant spending measure moving haltingly through Congress could remove its funding bottlenecks. Policy changes underway range from easing the firing of immigration judges to expanding expedited removal throughout the country to reopening family detention facilities.
  • Notes on the impact in Mexico and further south: Asylum applications are way up in Mexico even as migrant shelters empty. Numbers of migrants giving up and returning to South America have grown to the point that Costa Rica and Panama are facilitating southbound transportation.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: February 28, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

  • Reports of southbound migration as people abandon hope of seeking protection in the United States: As Trump administration measures shut off the possibility of seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, some people who had migrated to Mexico to do that are turning around. Several dozen per day have been boarding boats through dangerous currents to avoid traveling southbound through the Darién Gap.
  • Another Guantánamo flight arrives, as released detainees reveal horrific conditions: The Trump administration sent 17 more undocumented migrants to the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station, just 3 days after removing to Venezuela all who had been at the base for up to 16 days. Those released from the facility told of horrific and abusive conditions.
  • “Mass deportation” updates: The House passed a budget resolution that, like a Senate measure passed a week earlier, could provide a gigantic amount of funding for the administration’s mass deportation plans. These plans appear to include widespread use of military bases and invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
  • “Bridge deportations” continue: The Trump administration sent to Costa Rica a second plane with migrants aboard from Asia, eastern Europe, and Africa. In Panama, 112 of 299 migrants whom the administration flew there are in a jungle camp, cut off from access to attorneys, as they voice fear of return to their countries of origin.
  • The impact on Mexico: President Trump appears determined to levy tariffs on Mexican goods on March 4, citing continued flows of fentanyl. U.S. deportation flights to Mexico are now taking people as far south as possible, near the Guatemala border.
  • Update on CBP’s border drug seizures: Despite Donald Trump’s tariff threats, CBP is finding less fentanyl at the border. Seizures dropped 21 percent from 2023 to 2024, and another 22 percent in the first four months of fiscal 2025, compared to the same period a year earlier. All drugs except marijuana—which continues a sharp decline in seizures—continue to be overwhelmingly encountered at ports of entry.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: February 21, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

The many actions and changes following Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration force a change in this week’s Border Update format. Instead of narratives organized under three or four topics, this Update organizes brief points under the following headings:

  • Migration dropped in January in anticipation of Trump asylum shutoff: Customs and Border Protection reported a 36 percent drop in migrant encounters at the border from December to January, deepening a 13-month-long decline in migration. Restrictive Trump policies are the main cause for the new drop. Border Patrol apprehensions are now averaging 285 per day.
  • Darién Gap migration declines sharply: Migration through the treacherous jungle route from Colombia to Panama dropped to 72 people per day in January, the fewest since February 2021.
  • Deportation flights send third countries’ citizens to Panama and Costa Rica: In what is being called “bridge deportations,” the Trump administration sent 299 migrants from mostly Asian countries to Panama and 135 to Costa Rica. Both countries are keeping people in remote camps pending their repatriation. The situation of those with protection needs is uncertain.
  • Guantánamo detainees sent back to Venezuela via Honduras: The Trump administration sent all but one of 178 Venezuelan migrants whom it had been holding at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba to Honduras, where a Venezuelan government plane retrieved them and brought them to Caracas.
  • Congress readies a massive border and deportation spending package: The Senate passed a framework bill that could pave the way for $175 billion in new border hardening and “mass deportation” spending, which could pass without a single Democratic vote. The timetable is uncertain, though, as House and Senate Republican leaders disagree on the way forward.
  • “Mass deportation” updates: Top Trump administration officials are dissatisfied with the “flagging” pace of Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations so far. The administration plans to cancel Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.
  • Notes on the impact in Mexico: Mexico has still not seen a big increase in cross-border deportations from the United States. For now at least, migrant shelters in Mexico are emptying while smugglers raise their prices.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: February 14, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

The many actions and changes following Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration force a change in this week’s Border Update format. Instead of narratives organized under three or four topics, this Update organizes brief points under the following headings:

THE FULL UPDATE:

Read More

Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: February 7, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

The many actions and changes following Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration force a change in this week’s Border Update format. Instead of narratives organized under three or four topics, this Update organizes brief points under the following headings:

  • A tariff threat and a Mexican military deployment: after President Trump threatened to levy tariffs on Mexican imports, the Mexican government agreed to send 10,000 National Guard personnel to the U.S. border zone.
  • Reduced migration, and almost no asylum access, as groups file suit: fewer migrants are arriving at the border, in part because it is now impossible to exercise the right to asylum; a new lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s border shutdown.
  • The U.S. military at the border and in the deportation effort: the new administration has now sent about 2,100 active-duty troops to the border as the new defense secretary paid a visit and military deportation flights—including one to India—continue.
  • First detainees taken to Guantánamo: two military planes have taken less than two dozen detained migrants, apparently people with ties to a Venezuelan organized crime group, to the notorious terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
  • Administration cancels TPS for Venezuelans: nearly 350,000 Venezuelans will lose their ability to live and work in the United States in April as the Trump administration reverses an extension that the Biden administration had granted in January. A similar number of Venezuelans face the same fate in September.
  • “Migration diplomacy” in Venezuela and Central America: a Trump administration envoy met with Venezuela’s dictator and appears to have secured a deal to allow deportation flights. The new secretary of state visited Central America and secured increased cooperation against migration, including a deal to send prisoners to El Salvador’s growing jails.
  • Mass deportation proceeds as Congress prepares a big funding bill: ICE is ramping up its arrests, detentions, and removals in the U.S. interior as Congress prepares a spending measure that could total $150 billion for border security.
  • Texas seeks reimbursement for “Operation Lone Star”: Texas’s governor, a Trump ally, is offering the federal government use of facilities built with state funds while asking for reimbursement of $11 billion spent on its border crackdown. Texas National Guard troops may now arrest migrants for CBP.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: January 31, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

This Update is the product of interviews and the review of over 270,000 words of source documents since January 23. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

The many actions and changes following Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration force a change in this week’s Border Update format. Instead of narratives organized under three or four topics, this Update organizes brief points under the following headings:

THE FULL UPDATE:

Read More

Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: January 24, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

This Update is the product of interviews and the review of over 210,000 words of source documents since January 18. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

The many actions and changes following Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration force a change in the format of this week’s Border Update. Instead of narratives organized under three or four topics, this Update organizes brief points under the following headings:

THE FULL UPDATE:

Read More

Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: January 19, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

This update is later than usual because of staff travel and congressional testimony in recent days. It reflects events as of the end of January 17, making it slightly out of date. Weekly publication will resume on time on Friday, January 24.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Media are reporting that about 100 executive orders will follow Donald Trump’s inauguration, many related to the border and migration. We can expect an end to the CBP One mobile phone app and humanitarian parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicarguans, and Venezuelans. We can expect a push to renew “Remain in Mexico,” possibly Title 42 and “safe third country” agreements: programs that require the cooperation of Mexico and other nations. A gigantic piece of spending legislation to fund this, plus a mass deportation plan, may soon move in Congress.

The Wall Street Journal reported that ICE may begin raids seeking to detain undocumented migrants in Chicago immediately after Inauguration Day. Near Bakersfield, California, Border Patrol agents spread fear among farmworkers by carrying out a large-scale operation of their own. Officials like “Border Czar” Tom Homan are promising conflict with so-called “sanctuary cities” as they call for more detention and deportation capacity, while Mexico prepares to receive large numbers of people.

Enough Democratic senators voted “yes” to break a filibuster and permit likely passage of the Laken Riley Act. The Republican-led bill, named for a woman murdered by a Venezuelan migrant, would allow migrants with pending immigration cases to be detained even if just arrested and charged with a petty crime, and would empower state attorneys-general to challenge aspects of U.S. immigration law in court. The Senate’s cloture vote passed with the votes of 10 of 45 Democratic-aligned senators present, all of them from electorally competitive states.

December 2024 saw the fewest Border Patrol apprehensions per day of the entire Biden administration. The administration’s June rule barring most asylum access between ports of entry is the main reason. For the second time ever, more migrants were encountered at the official border crossings than apprehended by Border Patrol between them. Texas’s Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector measured the most apprehensions, edging out San Diego, which had been number one since June 2024.

THE FULL UPDATE:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: January 10, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: December 20, 2024

Due to end-of-year staff vacation time, WOLA will not publish Border Updates for the next two weeks. Updates will resume on January 10, 2025.

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

November data showed migration levels at the border continuing to decline following Donald Trump’s election, to such an extent that, for the first time, port-of-entry arrivals exceeded Border Patrol apprehensions. Still, some reports from Texas point to an increase in mid-December as some people try to reach U.S. soil before Inauguration Day. Rumors sent some migrants to attempt to turn themselves in at a border wall gate in El Paso, where state forces repelled them violently. Caravans continue to form in southern Mexico, but none remain intact beyond Mexico’s southernmost states.

As Trump administration officials ramp up plans to deport undocumented migrants on a massive scale likely requiring the use of military aircraft, concern is sweeping throughout communities where many families are “blended”: citizens living with non-citizens. Fear is spreading in south Texas, while council members and law enforcement in San Diego disagree on cooperation.

Conservative media and Donald Trump complained bitterly about the Biden administration’s auctioning off of border wall parts left over when construction halted after Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. In fact, the selloff was mandated by the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: December 13, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Following likely confirmation of the incoming Trump administration’s choice for Homeland Security secretary, the 119th Congress will move by late January on a package of hardline border and immigration measures whose total cost could be more than $100 billion. As it will move under a special Senate rule called “reconciliation,” it could pass the chamber, where Republicans lead by a 53-47 margin, by a simple majority.

Without offering much detail, President-Elect Trump and other White House officials have been previewing plans to carry out a promised campaign of mass deportations of undocumented migrants in the United States. They are exhibiting a willingness to deport U.S. citizen children together with their undocumented parents, and are preparing aggressive tactics against Democratic state and local officials who do not cooperate.

Many migrants cannot be deported quickly or inexpensively because they come from distant countries, or countries whose governments do not allow deportation flights. The incoming Trump administration is seeking third countries to accept some deportees, including a reluctant Mexico that may already find itself receiving large numbers of its own citizens across the land border. Impacts of imminent policy changes are evident all along the U.S.-bound migration route, including the Darién Gap which saw, in November, the lightest migration flow since April 2022.

The incoming administration announced nominees to head CBP and ICE, along with White House and ambassadorial choices. CBP nominee Rodney Scott, a former Border Patrol chief, is an outspoken critic of the Biden administration whose past activities raise concerns among rights defenders. A former Border Patrol union chief is the nominee to head the U.S. embassy in Chile.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: December 6, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Preliminary data indicate that Border Patrol apprehended fewer migrants at the border in November than any month since July 2020. An expected post-election rush, with migrants seeking to get to the United States before Donald Trump’s inauguration, has not happened. In southern Mexico, though, people appear to be arriving in larger numbers and seeking to migrate in large groups.

President-Elect Trump appeared to pull down his November 25 threat to slap tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods until they stop the entry of migrants and drugs, following a reportedly cordial phone call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. However, Sheinbaum showed a willingness to push back, disputing Trump’s characterization of what was agreed. A future area of disagreement may be Mexico’s willingness to accept deportations of migrants from third countries.

This section lists several analyses and reports about the incoming administration’s hardline approach to the border and migration. Topics include potential use of the U.S. military, the Texas state government’s crackdown serving as a model or template, the shaky future of alternative migration pathways, and signs that at least some Democrats are moving rightward.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: November 22, 2024

Due to the U.S. holiday, there will be no Weekly Border Update on November 29, 2024. Updates will resume on December 6.

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: November 15, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

In the days following his election to the presidency, Donald Trump has named three officials with direct border and migration responsibilities. All of them represent the Republican Party’s hard line on border security crackdowns and restriction of immigration. Stephen Miller will be Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy at the White House. Tom Homan will be in the White House as a “border czar.” Kristi Noem is the nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security. They will manage a planned “mass deportation” campaign while seeking to do away with legal migration pathways that the Biden administration preserved or established. Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio will lead a foreign policy toward the Western Hemisphere, especially Mexico, for which migration will be a dominant issue.

Analysts and border-security planners continue to expect the number of migrants approaching the U.S.-Mexico border to increase ahead of Inauguration Day as people race to reach U.S. soil before a crackdown. So far, though, this has not materialized: Border Patrol apprehensions have actually dropped since Election Day.

22,914 people migrated in October through the treacherous Darién Gap region straddling Colombia and Panama. That is a modest drop from 25,111 in September, which may be due at least in part to weather conditions. The number of migrants from Venezuela (19,522) barely dropped from September.

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Democrats until the chamber switches to Republican control, published the text of its version of the 2025 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security. It includes more money for CBP, especially for ports of entry, and more funding for shelters and local jurisdictions receiving and integrating released migrants. It does not include additional money to hire Border Patrol agents or to build new border barriers. It is unclear whether this bill will move forward. Republicans may seek to write their own bill after they assume the Senate majority in January, though that would require keeping the U.S. government open after December 20, the deadline for passing a 2025 budget.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: November 8, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Donald Trump’s election points to a return, and likely intensification, of ultra-hardline border and migration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere. We can expect a suspension or curtailment of most legal migration pathways, from CBP One to asylum access to humanitarian parole. We can expect a “mass deportation” campaign in the U.S. interior. This section lists and explains some of the president-elect’s promised and likely initiatives, and what they mean for U.S.-Mexico relations.

Trump’s victory creates an incentive for some migrants to try to reach U.S. soil before Inauguration Day, January 20, rather than await CBP One appointments. In Mexico, “caravans” are already forming, while migrants in shelters along the route voice anxiety about their future.

Members of Mexico’s National Guard, a recently created force made up mostly of transferred soldiers, opened fire on a vehicle carrying migrants along the border east of Tijuana. Two Colombian people were killed. It is the second such incident since October 1, when Mexican Army soldiers killed six migrants in Chiapas. In both incidents, military leadership claims that the soldiers were returning fire, or thought that they were; witnesses dispute that.

Migration through the Darién Gap jungle region straddling Colombia and Panama appears to have dropped modestly from September to October. However, reports are pointing to an increase in people entering Colombia from Venezuela. Since August, Panama has operated 25 deportation flights, with U.S. support, to Colombia, Ecuador, and India.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: November 1, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

While border security and migration have been top issues in the too-close-to-call  U.S. presidential campaign, its last full week was not dominated by a single theme, narrative, or developing story. This section presents a series of links to coverage of incremental developments and links to substantial analyses of both candidates’ positions, likely outcomes if each is elected, views from swing states and border states, and how policy debates have shifted in 2024.

Along with the Biden administration’s June restrictions on asylum, a key reason why migration has declined during the 2024 election year is an unstated but vigorous Mexican government strategy of stepped-up interceptions of migrants, many of whom Mexican authorities then transfer to the country’s far south. This section presents links to several accounts of the impact this policy is having on people along the route through Mexico.

Panama’s recently inaugurated president issued a decree requiring migrants to pay fines for unlawful entry after they emerge from the treacherous Darién Gap jungle route. These fines may be waived or adjusted according to migrants’ “vulnerability.” President Raúl Mulino said he hopes to expand an ongoing program of deportation flights to include citizens of Venezuela. After rising sharply from August to September, the number of migrants transiting the Darién appears to have leveled off or increased slightly during the first half of October.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: October 25, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released information about migration in September, the final month of the U.S. federal government’s fiscal year. It showed a 25 percent year-on-year drop in Border Patrol’s migrant apprehensions, with most of the reduction happening since January and more sharply since June. That is the result of a Mexican government crackdown on migration transiting the country, along with the Biden administration’s new restrictions on asylum access. Data also show a 26 percent drop in seizures of the drug fentanyl, the first decline since fentanyl began appearing in the mid-2010s.

The federal judiciary’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier district court verdict finding that the practice of “metering”–posting CBP officers on the borderline to turn asylum seekers back from border ports of entry—is illegal. The decision caps seven years of litigation from migrant rights advocates. It does not directly affect the Biden administration’s current policy of turning back asylum seekers who have not made appointments at ports of entry using the CBP One app; legal challenges continue in that case.

“Caravans” of migrants, some saying they fear losing access to asylum and CBP One pathways after the U.S. election, have been forming in Mexico’s far south. Darién Gap migration appears to be leveling off in October after a sharp increase in September. Insecurity is worsening in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas, where many migrants are blocked or awaiting CBP One appointments.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: October 18, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump used a visit to Aurora, Colorado—site of recent claims of Venezuelan gang activity—to call for a large-scale deportation campaign, probably using the U.S. military and relying on the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. In Arizona, Trump proposed adding 10,000 agents to Border Patrol, a force that is struggling to hire enough agents to rise above 20,000. In a FOX News interview and other campaign appearances, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has continued to avoid positions on the border and migration that could be considered progressive.

After two months of sharp declines, data from Panama showed a 51 percent increase, from August to September, in migration through the treacherous Darién Gap region. This included a 69 percent jump in migration of citizens of Venezuela, where the government has ratcheted up repression after rejecting a very probable opposition victory in July 28 elections. Reports from Refugees International and Colombian groups point to vastly unmet humanitarian needs, and high vulnerability to organized crime, among the population transiting the Darién.

Three and a half years into the Texas state government’s “Operation Lone Star” border crackdown, Border Patrol’s Del Rio Sector (mid-Texas) is experiencing an increase in large groups of asylum seekers trying to turn themselves in. Although 96 percent of fentanyl seizures have been happening in California and Arizona, Mexican authorities raided a lab and seized 130,000 pills in recent days in Ciudad Juárez, across from the El Paso, Texas metropolitan area.

A collection of links to other news about the situation along the Texas-Mexico border, noting the state’s dependence on undocumented migrant labor, the state’s security forces’ misuse of force on the borderline, and an ongoing legal offensive against nonprofits that assist migrants.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: October 11, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Border Patrol apprehended 53,881 migrants in September between the U.S.-Mexico border’s ports of entry, according to preliminary data. That would be the lowest monthly total since August 2020 and the third straight month of apprehensions in the mid-50,000s. A crackdown in Mexico, followed months later by a Biden administration rule restricting asylum access, substantially explains the reduction from record levels in late 2023. Numbers have ceased going down, however, indicating that the drop may not be long-lasting..

A collection of links to news coverage of border and migration issues in the campaign. They include Donald Trump’s false linking of disaster assistance and migrant assistance, Trump’s comments indicating that migrants have brought “bad genes,” Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview, and polls showing contradictory points of view.

The Biden administration will not renew a two-year humanitarian parole status granted to up to 30,000 citizens per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. In order to avoid falling into a legal limbo, parole beneficiaries will have to adjust their status, applying for Temporary Protected Status, asylum, or other options if they exist.

Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has named a new head of the Mexican government’s migration agency (INM). Sergio Salomón Céspedes will not take office until December, when he finishes his term as governor of Puebla, and the current INM director, Francisco Garduño, will stay on. This may point to some continuity in the new government’s approach to migration. Civilian prosecutors have meanwhile begun investigating an October 1 incident in Chiapas in which Army personnel fired on a vehicle carrying migrants, killing six of them.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: October 4, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Vice President Kamala Harris paid her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since becoming the Democratic presidential candidate. She was in Douglas, Arizona, on September 27. While there, she praised the contributions that immigrants have made to the United States, but also promised to maintain or strengthen curbs on access to asylum at the border.

With a September 30 proclamation and final rule, the Biden administration tightened curbs on migrants’ access to the U.S. asylum system if they cross the border without securing one of a limited number of appointments at land-border ports of entry. The rule’s original version, issued June 4, halts most asylum access when Border Patrol’s migrant apprehensions average 2,500 per day, and would restore asylum access when apprehensions average less than 1,500 per day over 7 days. The revised rule would require that average be maintained for 28 days, further cementing the asylum ban.

Candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz argued over migration in an October 1 vice-presidential debate. Walz incorrectly claimed that Donald Trump built “less than 2 percent” of border wall. Vance incorrectly claimed that there are “20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country,” that “we have 320,000 children that the Department of Homeland Security has effectively lost,” that the CBP One program is illegal, and that migrants are a cause of the fentanyl crisis. Walz, like Harris in Arizona, attacked Donald Trump for torpedoing compromise legislation that would have hired more border agents, built more border wall, and placed curbs on asylum.

In Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas, Mexican Army soldiers chased, then fired on, a pickup truck carrying 33 migrants on the evening of October 1, killing 6 of them and wounding 12. A military statement contended that soldiers fired at the vehicle after hearing “detonations.” The deceased victims were reportedly from Nepal, Egypt, and Pakistan. The incident heightens concerns about the Mexican government’s expanding placement of combat-trained soldiers in internal law-enforcement roles.

Recovered migrant remains totaled a record-breaking 175 in Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector as fiscal 2024 drew to a close. More reports of Texas National Guard soldiers firing projectiles at migrant families who pose no threat. Texas’s Attorney-General opened a fifth investigation into a group assisting migrants in the border region. FBI data show violent crime rates in Texas border cities are lower than all cities’ average.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: September 20, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Migration at the border remains at its lowest level since the fall of 2020, according to new CBP data released in August, following a crackdown on migratory movements that Mexico launched in early 2024 and a June Biden administration ban on most asylum access between border ports of entry. The August total, however, was 3 percent greater than July—the first month-to-month increase in six months—which may indicate that these crackdowns’ deterrent impact is flattening or even eroding.

Kamala Harris called out the Trump campaign’s “mass deportation” plans. Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance doubled down on false and racist claims about Haitian immigrants living and working legally in Ohio. A national poll revealed immigration and the border remains among voters’ top concerns.

A report from Arizona attorneys revealed a high portion of unaccompanied children reporting verbal and physical abuse while in Border Patrol custody. A FOIA result points to more than 200 CBP personnel under investigation for serious misconduct. Reports on the Uvalde, Texas school shooting response and complications in prosecuting migrant smugglers in Arizona.

Border Patrol’s recoveries of migrant remains in its El Paso Sector now stand at a record 171 since October. Investigations from the ACLU, NPR, and the Border Network for Human Rights and Texas Civil Rights Project reveal troubling aspects of the Texas state government’s “Operation Lone Star.”

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: September 13, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Migration and the border were principal topics at the September 10 presidential campaign debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. Harris avoided specifics and pledged to support compromise legislation, which failed in the Senate in February, that would restrict asylum access. Trump made vitriolic and racist comments about migrants, some of which debate moderators had to fact-check on the spot.

The number of migrants transiting the Darién Gap, a treacherous jungle region straddling Colombia and Panama, fell in August to the fewest since June 2022. Some of the drop may be a “wait and see” effect as migrants evaluate the actions of a new president in Panama who has promised increased deportation flights with U.S. support. Data from the first eight days of September, however, seem to point to a 41 percent increase in per-day Darién Gap migration over August’s average.

Mexico has begun having security force personnel accompany buses transporting migrants who have CBP One appointments at the U.S. border. Some press coverage last week covered the kidnappings, extortions, and other trauma suffered by migrants who seek to transit Mexico on their own.

Texas’s state government is persisting in a legal offensive against charities that assist migrants released from CBP custody at the border, and refusing a federal order to dismantle security-related construction on an island in the Rio Grande.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: September 6, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

The Biden administration’s June rule keeps asylum out of reach for most people who cross between ports of entry, but would restore asylum access if migrant encounters average 1,500 per day for a week. With encounters averaging over 1,800 per day, the administration is now reportedly considering moving the goalposts, requiring the average to remain below the 1,500 threshold for a month and including unaccompanied children in the count.

Though migrant encounters have dropped in recent months in the United States, Panama, and Honduras, Mexico recorded its fifth-largest-ever number in July as a crackdown on in-transit migration continues. In July, for the first time, Mexico’s migrant encounters exceeded U.S. authorities’ southern-border encounters.

Mexico announced that it will provide security to buses transporting migrants who have secured a limited number of appointments at U.S. ports of entry using the CBP One smartphone app. Escorted buses will depart the southernmost states of Chiapas and Tabasco. The measure raises hope for a reduction in organized crime groups’ ransom kidnappings of northbound migrants.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, continues to voice strong support for the “Border Act,” a bill that failed in the U.S. Senate in February 2024 following negotiations that led to a bipartisan compromise. The bill includes measures, conceded to Republican legislators, that the Democratic Party did not support during the Trump years, like asylum restrictions, more migrant detention, and some wall-building.

Links to updates and analyses about Border Patrol’s flawed missing migrant program, humanitarian groups’ efforts to rescue migrants and locate remains, a tragic train derailment near Ciudad Juárez, and other items.

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Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: August 30, 2024

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

Support ad-free, paywall-free Weekly Border Updates. Your donation to WOLA is crucial to sustain this effort. Please contribute now and support our work.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

Some campaign coverage considered Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s support for a February 2024 “border deal” legislative compromise to be a “flip-flop” on the border wall, since that bill required spending past years’ wall-building funds. Other analysis looked at the obstacles standing in the way of Donald Trump’s pledge to carry out mass deportations if elected.

Amid turmoil and repression following the government’s illegitimate claim to have won July 28 presidential elections, there is no massive wave of people fleeing Venezuela, at least not yet. However, numbers do appear to have risen slightly.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met in Colombia with the foreign ministers of Colombia and Panama; the officials signed commitments to collaborate further on territorial control and migration management in the Darién Gap region. Panama is proceeding with U.S.-funded deportation flights, the expected tempo appears to be about three or four planes per week.

CBP turned down a Fox News Freedom of Information Act request to identify the nationalities of migrants encountered at the border who appeared in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Dataset. Republicans have cited a recent increase in such encounters in criticism of the Biden administration, but we do not know where the people showing up in the database of people with alleged terror ties are coming from. Colombia, where two groups on the U.S. list have demobilized this century, is a strong possibility.

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