San Diego may now be the number-one migration destination. The Senate refuses to impeach Mayorkas. The House floats a hard-line border bill. Mass migrant kidnapping in Ciudad Juárez.

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Developments

The San Diego, California Border Patrol sector may now be the number one destination for migrants coming to the border, according to a read of weekly data posted by Border Patrol sector chiefs. San Diego saw the most migration during much of the 1990s but has been surpassed by other parts of the border over the past quarter-century.

An increase in migrant arrivals there—8,959 Border Patrol apprehensions between April 10 and 16—had overwhelmed San Diego county efforts to receive released migrants, resulting in 24,000 CBP “street releases ” in San Diego since federal funding ran out in February. San Diego County has received $19.6 million in federal funding from the 2024 budget that Congress approved in March, but has not yet restarted migrant reception services, Border Report found.

In an effort to pacify conservatives angry that an Ukraine aid bill is headed to a vote this weekend, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) introduced a new hard-line border bill. H.R. 3602, currently on the Rules Committee’s docket, includes most of the provisions of H.R. 2, which passed the House on a party-line vote in May 2023. Among other provisions, H.R. 2 would make it virtually impossible to access the U.S. asylum system at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The bill might come to a vote this week—or it may die a quiet death, as Republican hardliners are unhappy with the process.

As expected, the U.S. Senate voted to dismiss the House of Representatives’ effort to impeach Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The impeachment—spearheaded by House Republicans who oppose Mayorkas’s management of the border and migration—will not go to a Senate trial.

The dismissal passed by a 51-49 party-line vote in the Democratic-majority Senate. The most moderate Republicans voted to impeach, while the most conservative Democrats (or independents who caucus with Democrats) voted to dismiss.

More than 20 migrants, about half from Ecuador, were kidnapped by criminals in Ciudad Juárez last week after flying to the city. The criminals reportedly released five of them for a ransom of $8,000 each.

Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena is on a tour of Texas border cities, visiting consulates to help them prepare for—and to send a strong message of opposition to—Texas’s S.B. 4 state immigration law. The controversial measure is currently suspended as federal courts consider appeals.

Bárcena reiterated that Mexico will not accept any deportations, including of Mexican citizens, carried out by Texas state—not federal—authorities.

In the Darién Gap, Colombia reports capturing “98 members of different criminal organizations between August 7, 2022 and March 12, 2024,” reads an item at the U.S. Southern Command’s Diálogo website. The document does not state whether any of those captured held positions of importance in criminal organizations, as opposed to low-level figures.

A new update from the UN Refugee Agency noted that since September, Honduras has measured more in-transit migration than Panama has. “This trend is explained by air transit to Nicaragua, which allows people coming mainly from Haiti, Cuba, Guinea, and other extra-continental nationalities to subsequently take the route through Honduras without passing through the Darién. In addition, there is maritime transit from Colombia to Nicaragua.”

Monday is the deadline for public comment on CBP’s plan to install 25 miles of stadium-style bright lighting along the Rio Grande in west and south Texas. As the proposed lighting is “a major stressor to wildlife” and creates light pollution, the plan alarms environmental defenders.

Analyses and Feature Stories

A new WOLA analysis looks at the sharp drop in migration at the U.S.-Mexico border so far in 2024. Rather than U.S. policy changes or the Texas government’s crackdown, the main reason appears to be Mexico’s stepped-up interdiction of migrants, at U.S. urging. These efforts may falter as flows of new migrants into Mexico remain robust; if that happens and migration increases, the Biden administration will likely consider means to “shut down” asylum access. Those steps, too, would only have a short-term impact, the study concludes.

The Guardian examined the leading candidate in Panama’s presidential elections’ unrealistic vow to “close” the Darién Gap to migration.

A report from Jesuit Refugee Service USA and the Boston College School of Social Work looked at how digital tools are changing the migration experience, from the spread of misinformation to the challenges of using the CBP One app.

On the Right