December 2024 saw the fewest migrants transiting the Darién Gap since March 2022, a likely "Trump effect."
Panama reported 4,849 people migrating through the Darién Gap in December 2024, the fewest since March 2022. It is a likely sign that people have begun delaying their migration plans, for now, after Trump’s election.
Though the number of people transiting the jungle region dropped 42 percent from 2023’s record levels (from 520,085 to 302,203), 2024 was the second heaviest year ever for Darién Gap migration.
Note that the chart above shows that an important increase in Darién Gap migration happened from 2018 to 2019, when Donald Trump was in the White House. This migration flow, mostly citizens of Haiti and Cuba, was curtailed by the pandemic in 2020—but it shows that Trump’s first-administration policies didn’t deter people from trying to migrate after an initial “wait and see” phase.
We need to address this notion that Biden somehow swung the door open to migrants. He kept in place the harshest ban on asylum ever.
If the text below reads like a Twitter thread, that’s where it comes from. It’s a response to arguments from New York Times columnist David Leonhardt making some sweeping mischaracterizations of what happened at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden years.
Leonhardt’s words go a long way toward cementing in place a growing view in elite opinion that Democrats lost the election because Joe Biden’s administration was “too soft” on migrants. According to this view, the administration failed to crack down out of fear of offending “the groups”—in this case, migrants’ rights defenders.
In fact, Biden was never “soft” and the groups were disillusioned from the get-go. His revocation of a few of the most severely anti-migrant Trump policies does not explain why migration increased during his term. Leonhardt’s inaccurate claims risk pushing moderate Democrats—who read and cite him—into adopting much of Trump’s approach to the border and migration.
Here’s the thread, which is getting massive numbers on Twitter because of a boost from New Republic writer Greg Sargent.
We need to address this notion that Biden somehow swung the door open to migrants. He kept in place the harshest ban on asylum ever: Title 42. It just didn’t deter a migrant population that changed dramatically.
During Donald Trump’s term, 90+ percent of migrants were from Mexico and Central America (blue, green, brown, yellow in the chart below). If you were a migrant from those countries, your probability of being released into the United States after apprehension didn’t change much after Biden’s inauguration.
(An exception is unaccompanied children from Central America: Biden stopped Trump’s practice of expelling them, alone, back into their countries regardless of protection needs. The moral argument for doing that is self-evident, and it didn’t move the needle much overall.)
Migrants may have found Biden’s initial moves and rhetoric encouraging? But Biden kept in place Stephen Miller’s Title 42 expulsions policy, which shut down asylum for everyone who could be deported easily. Ending “Remain in Mexico” didn’t matter, Title 42 had eclipsed it.
This chart shows that the Biden administration continued applying Title 42, expelling people as vigorously as possible (orange). But yes, the chart shows a decline in the _percentage_ of people being expelled in 2021.
That is not Biden being soft-hearted toward migrants. Instead, it reflects a historic change in the migrant population: new nationalities began arriving in ways unimaginable before 2021.
Just as Joe Biden was being inaugurated, the world’s borders were opening up post-pandemic. So did new migration routes like the Darién Gap.
The U.S.-Mexico border became accessible to people from very distant countries. South America and beyond. This had never happened before. By 2023, Mexico and Central America were just 55 percent of migrants at the border. By early 2024, one in nine were from Europe, Asia, or Africa.
You may have noticed that these countries are far away. It’s costly to deport people to them—if it’s even possible diplomatically—because you have to fly them. More had to be released into the U.S. interior to seek asylum.
Expulsions across a land border are way cheaper than by air. Under Trump, Mexico agreed to take back Title 42 expulsions from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The Biden admin worked on Mexico to agree to take expelled people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
Biden expanded Title 42! It was a huge crackdown, especially on Mexicans and Central Americans (blue). But the overall flow of people from distant countries (green) was even larger, more than Mexico could absorb on its own.
When Title 42 ended, Biden placed a ban on asylum access on everyone who passed through a third country and didn’t get an asylum denial there. But the same challenge remained: people from distant countries who are hard to return. Numbers kept growing.
In late 2023, in yet another Biden crackdown, the admin leaned on Mexico to intensify its own efforts to block migrants crossing the country. It is unprecedented for Mexico to have sustained a migration crackdown for this long; they usually erode after a few months.
And then in June, Biden put in place an overall ban on asylum access between ports of entry, which lowered numbers further.
A common media question is “why did Biden wait so long” to ban asylum, a right enshrined in U.S. law. Because it’s probably illegal to do so? Because blanket bans on entry don’t apply to people who are already on U.S. soil, as courts told Trump?
In sum, it’s hard to argue that Biden did much to make the border more open for migrants. Those from Mexico and CentAm faced similar low odds of avoiding expulsion, compared to Trump. Those from elsewhere are harder to remove—but they are a new phenomenon Trump never faced.
This thread is already too long, so it doesn’t discuss the enormous human cost of these asylum denial policies, which WOLA and others have documented at length. That whole vital line of argument doesn’t seem to have much sway with the “Biden wasn’t harsh enough” crowd.
Migration in the treacherous Darién Gap fell in November to its lowest level since April 2022. The weather, and a possible "Trump effect," are likely to blame.
Panama’s government published data on Friday about migration through the Darién Gap, a treacherous jungle region straddling the country’s border with Colombia that until recently was considered too dangerous to walk through. People who attempt the 70-mile route frequently perish of drownings and attacks by animals and—more often—by criminals. Robberies and sexual violence are terribly common.
Despite that, the Darién Gap has become a heavily transited migration route since the COVID-19 pandemic began to ease. 1.2 million people have migrated through the Darién Gap between 2021 and 2024, more than 10 times the 115,758 people who made the journey in the 11 years between 2010 and 2020.
During the first 11 months of 2024, 277,354 people, 70 percent of them citizens of Venezuela, traversed the Darién route. That is down 44 percent from the 495,459 people who crossed the Darién Gap in 2023, the record year.
The most intense months of Darién Gap migration were August and September of 2023, when more than 2,500 people per day crossed the jungle. Migration dropped with the heaviest months of the rainy season (note October and especially November dropping every year on the chart below), and recovered only modestly at the beginning of 2024.
It’s not clear why Darién Gap migration didn’t climb all the way back up to August-September levels in early January 2024. Likely explanations could be word getting out about Mexico’s stepped-up efforts to block migrants, which began in January, and perhaps some Venezuelans postponing plans pending the outcome of July’s presidential elections, whose result the Nicolás Maduro regime ended up ignoring.
Migration fell further in July, after Panama inaugurated a president, Raúl Mulino, who took office promising to crack down on Darién Gap migration. Some migrants may have paused their plans amid news of stepped-up, U.S.-backed deportation flights from Panama. Panama’s government operated 34 deportation flights between August and November, removing about 1,370 people who had migrated through the region. While that is equal to about 1.8 percent of the total Darién Gap migration, the flights may have deterred some, at least for now.
Panama’s data show that November 2024 saw the fewest Darién Gap migrants of any month since April 2022. That is somewhat surprising, since one would expect the waves of repression following Venezuela’s failed election to have spurred more people to abandon Venezuela and head north. That appeared to be happening in September and October, when Venezuelan migration increased.
A key reason for November’s drop may be the weather. November is the height of the rainy season in southern Central America: the Darién paths are especially treacherous, and maritime routes can be dangerous. A report published Friday by Colombia’s migration agency shows that on at least three days last month, the boats leading to the Darién route’s starting point from the ports of Necoclí and Turbo, Colombia, were shut down completely by climate conditions.
There could also be a “Trump effect.” The November 5 election of a virulently anti-immigrant president in the United States may also be causing would-be migrants to change their plans, for now, until they have better information about what may await them.
This is just Border Patrol apprehensions: migrants caught out in the open areas between the official border crossings (ports of entry). I only have CBP port of entry data by country (which is smaller until very recently), for just 21 countries and a big “other” category, going back to October 2019.
Note how 10 months of the Trump administration (2017-2020) saw more migration than October 2024 (56,530 migrant apprehensions).
Note how the migrant population was almost completely Mexican, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Honduran before the pandemic, and far more diverse after it.
You can see the early 2024 drop resulting from Mexico’s ongoing crackdown on migrants trying to transit its territory, and then a further mid-2024 drop resulting from the Biden administration’s ban on nearly all asylum access for people who cross between the border’s ports of entry.
Preliminatry numbers show the fewest people crossing unauthorized between border ports of entry since July 2020, early in the pandemic.
“U.S. authorities made about 46,700 arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico in November, down about 17% from October to a new low for Joe Biden’s presidency,” reported the Associated Press’s Elliot Spagat.
That is the fewest people crossing unauthorized between border ports of entry since July 2020, early in the pandemic. Here’s what it looks like:
Migration rising in the final months of the Trump administration, as the “Title 42” pandemic expulsions policy ceased to deter people from coming to the border.
A big jump in migration in early 2021, after Trump left office and the world’s borders reopened several months into the COVID-19 pandemic.
A drop in January 2024 as Mexico’s government, at the Biden administration’s behest, started cracking down harder on migrants transiting the country.
A further drop in June 2024 as the Biden administration, in a questionably legal move, banned most asylum access between border ports of entry.
Many observers, including me, expected more migrants stranded in Mexico to rush to the border after Donald Trump won the November 5 election, seeking to get to U.S. soil before Inauguration Day on January 20. That is not happening, at least not yet. It may still happen, and activity is increasing in southern Mexico. Still, as the end-of-year holidays usually bring a lull in migration, it might not happen at all.
Despite tariff threats, Mexico's security and migration forces are already encountering and impeding, in their territory, about as many migrants as U.S. forces do at the border. In July, they stopped more people than their U.S. counterparts did.
<Edit, November 27:> It was great talking to Greg Sargent yesterday for an excellent New Republic piece that embeds the below graphic.
All this paves the way for larger deceptions later. Bank on it: The moment Trump takes office, the lower apprehension numbers will magically become real metrics. Fox News will start trumpeting them and he’ll start claiming the border has achieved pacification due to his strength. Indeed, Trump very well may credit his current threat of tariffs with “forcing” Mexico to make the lower numbers of border crossings a reality.
…[W]e may not be prepared for the gale-force agitprop that’s about to hit us.
</Edit>
Yesterday the President-Elect promised to levy tariffs on Mexico and Canada for not doing enough to stop migration to the U.S. border.
However, Mexico’s security and migration forces (green in the chart) are already encountering and impeding, in their territory, about as many migrants as U.S. forces do at the border. In July, they stopped more people than their U.S. counterparts did.
(Mexico hasn’t yet updated its September and October numbers. Underlying numbers are in the image’s alt text.)
Citizens of Venezuela made up 85 percent of all people who migrated through the Darién Gap in October 2024. That's Venezuela's largest-ever monthly share of the Darién migrant population.
Panama’s government posted updated data about the number of migrants encountered migrating through the Darién Gap jungles. While the number of people making the dangerous journey declined a bit (to 22,914 in October 2024, from 25,111 in September), the number of citizens of Venezuela barely budged (from 19,800 in September to 19,522 in October).
In fact, citizens of Venezuela (blue in the chart) made up 85 percent of all people who migrated through the Darién Gap in October. That’s Venezuela’s largest-ever monthly share of the Darién migrant population (it was 80% in September 2022).
Migration through the Darién Gap has declined from 2023, when Panama counted 520,085 people all year. 2024 is in second place, though, with 286,210 migrants during the year’s first 10 months.
Since 2022, an incredible 676,981 citizens of Venezuela have migrated through the Darién Gap. If there are about 30-32 million Venezuelan people, that is 1 out of every 47 of them.
Crackdowns temporarily lowered numbers. Children and families made up 43 percent of migrants encountered. The geography of migration has undergone rapid post-pandemic shifts and moved west since the end of Title 42. Texas’s crackdown did not cause this. Migrant deaths may have declined. But deaths as a share of the migrant population have not. Fentanyl seizures dropped for the first time. It’s not clear why.
Here’s 2,000 words and 12 charts that I wrote and drafted before the Election Day cataclysm. In late October, the U.S. government published final fiscal year 2024 data about border and migration topics. I waded through all that and distilled it into five key trends:
Crackdowns temporarily lowered numbers.
Children and families made up 43 percent of migrants encountered.
The geography of migration has undergone rapid post-pandemic shifts and moved west since the end of Title 42. Texas’s crackdown did not cause this.
Migrant deaths may have declined. But deaths as a share of the migrant population have not.
Fentanyl seizures dropped for the first time. It’s not clear why.
Weekly data from Border Patrol's San Diego, Tucson, and El Paso sectors show a four-month plateau in migration.
This chart shows the number of migrants apprehended by Border Patrol each week in the three geographic sectors at the U.S.-Mexico border where the agency apprehends the most people right now. (Border Patrol has nine U.S.-Mexico border sectors.)
Numbers have been remarkably flat since late June, following the Biden administration’s June 4 declaration of a near-total ban on asylum access for migrants arriving at the border between ports of entry. I don’t have a big archive of weekly apprehensions data, but looking at months, it is unusual to see migration remain at a low level following a decline for more than six months or so. We’re at four months now.
The source for the San Diego (California) and Tucson (Arizona) sectors is weekly tweets from the sectors’ chiefs. The source for the El Paso (far west Texas plus New Mexico) sector is the city of El Paso.
Mexico has stepped up its migrant interdiction efforts so much that its "encounters" with migrants now rival those of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
In July, absolutely for the first time ever, Mexico reported “encountering” (apprehending, blocking, turning back, detaining) more migrants in its territory than U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP, which includes Border Patrol) reported encountering at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Citing a “restructuring process,” Mexico’s authorities say their reporting of September data will be delayed, but at least through August, the two countries’ migrant encounters remain nearly equal for the first time in history. And, of course, the U.S. figure includes Mexican citizens, and Mexico’s does not.
Much has been written about Mexico’s undeclared but vigorous policy of redirecting other nations’ migrants to the country’s south and cutting way back on humanitarian visas, even as detention and deportation have grown less frequent. It’s been called the “chutes and ladders” or “merry-go-round” policy, shipping people south when they try to come north.
Of the 9 U.S.-Mexico Border Patrol sectors, the chiefs of 2 of the 3 busiest, San Diego and Tucson, post weekly updates to Twitter showing apprehensions of migrants.
In both, there has been little up-or-down change since late June, after the Biden administration’s asylum restrictions began.
In 2024, appropriations to FEMA's Shelter and Services Program, which prevents migrants from being dumped on U.S. streets upon release, totaled less than 2 percent of appropriations to FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund.
Donald Trump and others are pushing a completely false story that response to Hurricane Helene has been hobbled because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has had funds “stolen” to help shelter migrants recently released from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody at the border.
As many have pointed out, there is exactly zero truth to this. But even if that happened, it wouldn’t have amounted to much. In 2024, appropriations to FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, which prevents migrants from being dumped on U.S. streets upon release, totaled less than 2 percent of appropriations to FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund.
Border Patrol agents recovered the remains of 175 migrants in the agency’s El Paso Sector (far west Texas plus New Mexico), a shocking increase. An alarming thing about these deaths is that—unlike in Arizona, where people must walk for days—most of these deaths are within a few miles of the borderline, not far from services and help.
The number comes from USA Today reporter Lauren Villagrán, who reported on the mental health toll that finding so many bodies is taking on agents.
Weekly data from the three busiest Border Patrol sectors show migrant apprehensions dropping sharply for two or three weeks after June 5, when the Biden administration imposed a strict new asylum restriction rule. After that, the reductions have stopped and apprehensions have plateaued.
Weekly data from the three busiest Border Patrol sectors show migrant apprehensions dropping sharply for two or three weeks after June 5, when the Biden administration imposed a strict new asylum restriction rule.
After that, the reductions have stopped and apprehensions have plateaued through July and August.
The numbers show that "Operation Lone Star" hasn't caused declines in migration to Texas much greater than declines elsewhere. We should be relieved that cruelty hasn't paid dividends.
Here are Border Patrol’s apprehensions of migrants, by U.S. border state, since the record-setting month of December 2023.
Since December, unauthorized migration has declined by two thirds. Since January—after Mexico started cracking down hard on migrants crossing its territory—migration declined by one third. From May to June, after the Biden administration issued a rule severely limiting asylum access between ports of entry, migration dropped by 29 percent. (This effect is likely to be short-term, but may keep numbers down through Election Day—even as it sends many would-be asylum seekers back to danger.)
Texas’s hardline governor, Greg Abbott (R), likes to claim that his state government’s “Operation Lone Star,” a $10 billion-plus series of security-force deployments, imprisonments, and wall-building, is responsible for the drop in migrants coming to Texas. Abbott even alleges that Texas has pushed migrants to other states.
But did Texas see the largest drop in migration?
Since December, the answer is “yes, though not dramatically more.” Migrant apprehensions in Texas declined by 82 percent from December to June. But in Arizona, where Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) has not implemented any “Operation Lone Star”-like policies, apprehensions dropped by 70 percent. Both states, with their very different approaches, experienced declines greater than the border-wide average.
If one takes January—after Mexico’s crackdown began—as the baseline date, Arizona in fact declined more sharply than Texas. (52 percent to 40 percent.)
From May to June, Texas dropped 36 percent and Arizona 33 percent, a near tie.
From this, It’s really hard to conclude that Greg Abbott’s policies made a big difference. Arizona experienced similar declines without the hardline policies. The 2024 migration decline is a border-wide trend, not a Texas phenomenon.
We should be relieved that cruelty hasn’t paid any dividends.
CBP hasn't increased the allotment of appointments—currently about 1,450 per day—in a year. Asylum seekers now routinely spend months in Mexico seeking, then awaiting, appointments.
Here, by month and by country, are appointments that CBP has granted to asylum seekers, using its “CBP One” mobile phone app, to approach U.S.-Mexico land border ports of entry.
The app’s use for this purpose began in January 2023, and today it is very hard to request asylum at the border without an app-scheduled appointment.
It is especially hard since June 5, when the Biden administration imposed a rule banning asylum for most people who cross the border between ports of entry, even though the law specifies that people have the right to ask for asylum on U.S. soil regardless of how they crossed.
Though it is the only pathway for most, appointments are scarce. CBP hasn’t increased the allotment of appointments—currently about 1,450 per day—in a year. Asylum seekers now routinely spend months in Mexico seeking, then awaiting, appointments.
During the first five months of the 2024 fiscal year (October 2023-February 2024), people from Asia, Africa, or Europe were one out of every eight migrants whom Border Patrol apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border.
That’s never come close to happening before. Non-Americas countries are non-blue in this chart:
After increasing at the beginning of 2024, migration through the Darién Gap has declined somewhat, settling at about 1,000 people per day.
Last month (May), 69 percent of migrants passing through the treacherous jungle region were Venezuelan. In fact, Venezuelans now make up 50 percent of all migrants who’ve passed through the Darién Gap since 2010, when Panama started keeping and publishing records.
Between January 2022 and May 2024, 588,872 citizens of Venezuela journeyed through the Darién. Venezuela had about 30 million people in the mid-2010s when the nation’s exodus began—so fully 2 percent of Venezuela’s population has made the jungle journey since the pandemic’s end.
Colombia for the first time was the Darién Gap’s second-place nationality in May. Haiti, Ecuador, and China are dropping. India and Peru are up.
Sector chiefs’ weekly Twitter updates point to a mid-March drop in migration in Tucson, Arizona and San Diego, California, the two Border Patrol U.S.-Mexico border sectors that have been encountering the most migrants so far this year.
This is not the usual trend. March—and spring in general—is usually a time of steadily increasing migration, until temperatures get too high. In recent years, though, this has become less predictable, as policy changes, internet-driven rumors, and smuggling patterns have had more effect on the numbers of arriving people.
CBP released data showing that Border Patrol's apprehensions of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped by 50 percent from December to January, the sharpest drop for which I have records.
Late this afternoon—right around the time House Republicans were impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas—CBP released data showing that Border Patrol’s apprehensions of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped by 50 percent from December to January.
I’ve got monthly Border Patrol data going back to October 1999, and 50 percent is the steepest one-month drop of all of those 24+ years. Steeper than the first full month of the pandemic (April 2020). Steeper than the first full month after Title 42 ended (June 2023).
It’s peculiar that migration dropped so much over two months during which no policy changes were announced. I’ll repeat the most probable reasons, as laid out in WOLA’s January 26 Border Update.
According to a fewaccounts, numerous people sought to cross the U.S. border before the end of 2023 because they were misled by rumors indicating that the border would “close,” or that the CBP One app would no longer work, by year’s end.
Seasonal patterns are a factor: migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border havefallen from December to January every year since 2014 (except for a 6 percent increase in January 2021). Rainy conditions in the Darién Gap corridor straddling Colombia and Panama, and a tendency not to migrate during Christmas, may also explain some of the reduction.
Also, while there were no policy changes, there was one under heavy discussion: the Senate “border deal” that died a quick death on February 7. The spread of vague, confusing news about impending asylum restrictions could have cooled migration more than usual last month.
Anyway, here are two charts.
Here is all migration at the border, combining people apprehended by Border Patrol and people who, mainly with appointments, showed up at land ports of entry. This is what it looks like when the heaviest month for migration on record at the U.S.-Mexico border is followed by the third-lightest month of the Biden administration’s 36 months.
And here is just Border Patrol’s apprehensions of migrants between ports of entry. Look at Venezuela: apprehensions of Venezuelan citizens fell by 91 percent from December to January. This does seem to point to everyone feeling like they needed to cross to the United States before 2023 ended, leaving few on the Mexican side after the new year.
At some point last month, the 500,000th Venezuelan migrant of the 2020s crossed the Darién Gap. 61 percent of everyone who has migrated through this region in this decade has been a citizen of Venezuela.
The latest data from Panama show that 36,001 people migrated through the treacherous Darién Gap region in January. That’s an increase from December, reversing four months of declines. But it is still the fourth-smallest monthly total of the last twelve months.
At some point last month, the 500,000th Venezuelan migrant of the 2020s crossed the Darién Gap. 61 percent of everyone who has migrated through this region in this decade has been a citizen of Venezuela.
Actually, to be precise: the 500,000th Venezuelan migrant since 2022 crossed the Darién Gap last month. Out of 503,805 Venezuelan migrants between January 2000 and January 2024, 500,917 came in the last 25 months. There were about 30 million people living in Venezuela: so 1 out of every 60 has walked this nightmare jungle route. In 25 months.
The 30,000th Chinese citizen of the 2020s crossed the Darién last month. A year ago (after January 2023), the decade’s total migration from China was just 2,998 people.
Data posted to Twitter by Border Patrol sector chiefs show migration increasing again during the second half of January 2024.
After dipping sharply after the holidays, the number of people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border appears to be increasing again.
That, at least, is the trend that we can discern from the weekly updates that the Border Patrol chiefs in Tucson and San Diego, two of the busiest of the agency’s nine U.S.-Mexico border sectors, have been posting to their Twitter accounts.
The Senate is nearing a deal that would bring back Title 42-style expulsions of asylum seekers at the border. But Title 42 didn't reduce migration. Instead, it grew sharply.
A Senate deal on Ukraine, Israel, and border funding might include new restrictions on the right to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, satisfying Republican legislators’ demand. Of what we know, the most radical of these would be a new legal authority shutting the border to asylum seekers when the daily average of migrant apprehensions exceeds 5,000.
That would trigger a new “Title 42” authority expelling people out of the United States (if Mexico agrees to take them), regardless of protection needs.
On January 27, President Biden described this as an “emergency authority to shut down the border until it can get back under control.” He added, “If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.“
We keep hearing this notion that more expelled asylum seekers equals fewer migrants at the border. But that’s not what happened during the Title 42 period (March 2020 to May 2023).
True, there was a decline in arrivals of would-be asylum-seekers from nationalities whose expulsions Mexico would accept. But the number of people from other countries, and of all people seeking to evade Border Patrol, grew sharply.
Migration ballooned during the Title 42 “expulsions” period. Title 42 was in place:
In the last 9 full months of the Trump administration, when migrant encounters shot upward, from 17,106 in April 2020 (the pandemic lockdown’s first full month) to 73,994 in December 2020.
in early 2021, when south Texas Border Patrol processing facilities were overwhelmed with child and family arrivals;
in September 2021, when more than 10,000 Haitian asylum seekers came to Del Rio, Texas all at once;
in September-December 2022, when more than 200,000 people—more than half of them from Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela—crossed into Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector.
This was not a time when the border was “fixed.”
If the Senate deal results in a new expulsion authority, it might bring the numbers down at the border for a few months, as all “get-tough” strategies against migration tend to do. But as we saw in 2020-2023, migration will recover despite the expulsions, after a period of adjustment—perhaps by Election Day.
Nine charts explaining the state of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border at the end of 2023.
Late on Friday the 26th, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) updated its dataset of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border through December. Here are some highlights, expressed as nine charts.
Migrants apprehended by Border Patrol (in border areas between ports of entry)
Between ports of entry, CBP’s Border Patrol component apprehended 249,785 people last month. That is probably a monthly record. It is at least the largest amount measured since October 1999, the earliest month for which Border Patrol makes monthly data available.
Border Patrol’s migrant apprehensions jumped 31 percent from November (191,112). Increased migration from Venezuela, which more than doubled, accounted for 41 percent of the border-wide month-to-month increase.
December also saw big increases in migration between ports of entry from the other three nationalities (in addition to Venezuela) whose citizens the Biden administration allows to apply for its humanitarian parole program: Cuba (+192 percent from November to December), Haiti (+1,266 percent), and Nicaragua (+91 percent). This may mean that the humanitarian parole program is saturated by demand and insufficient supply.
It was the first month since May 2022 that more than 1,000 Haitian citizens crossed between the ports of entry and ended up in Border Patrol custody.
At the official border crossings, CBP’s Office of Field Operations encountered 52,249 migrants. This is a record—though not by a wide margin, as CBP tightly controls who gets to step on U.S. soil and approach its ports of entry. Since July 2023, port-of-entry encounters have been within a narrow band: between 50,837 and 52,249. Of December’s encounters, CBP’s release indicates, 45,770 (88 percent, 1,476 per day) had made appointments using the CBP One smartphone app.
Combine the Border Patrol and port-of-entry totals, and U.S. border authorities encountered 302,034 people at the U.S.-Mexico border last month. That is a record.
Border Patrol apprehensions of unaccompanied children, or parents and children
46 percent of migrants apprehended by Border Patrol between ports of entry in December were members of family units (41 percent) or minors who arrived unaccompanied (5 percent). That is the 24th-highest child-and-family share of Border Patrol’s last 147 months, and probably ever: high, but nowhere near a record.
The overall number of children and families (114,192), however, was the second-most ever, nearly matching the record set in September 2023.
CBP encounters with family units (parents with children)
Combining Border Patrol apprehensions with port-of-entry encounters, December 2023 saw the second-highest-ever monthly total of family unit-member encounters: 123,512, just short of September 2023’s record total of 123,815.
Family-unit encounters rose 19 percent from November to December. Citizens of Venezuela arriving as families accounted for 38 percent of the month-to-month increase, and citizens of Mexico accounted for 28 percent.
Combining Border Patrol apprehensions with port-of-entry encounters, December 2023 saw 12,467 children arrive at the border unaccompanied. That was the 17th-highest monthly total ever, and a 5 percent increase over November 2023.
The nationalities that contributed most to the increase in unaccompanied child arrivals were Haiti, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Arrivals from El Salvador and Honduras both declined.
When the pandemic-area Title 42 expulsions policy was in effect, Border Patrol apprehensions of single adults skyrocketed. The reasoning was that (a) a large portion of adult migrants were seeking to evade apprehension, not turn themselves in to seek asylum; and (b) when Title 42 caused them to be expelled to Mexico after a very brief time in Border Patrol custody, many attempted to migrate again, leading to many more repeat apprehensions.
That was borne out in the months after Title 42 ended, when single adult apprehensions dropped sharply. However, even without a quick expulsions policy in place, Border Patrol’s apprehensions of single adult migrants between the ports of entry jumped 41 percent from November to December, from 96,478 to 135,593. This was the 8th largest monthly total of single adult migrant apprehensions of the past 147 months.
Combining Border Patrol apprehensions with port-of-entry encounters, December 2023 saw 164,907 migrants arrive as single adults, a 32 percent increase over November (125,332). Single adult migrants from Venezuela and Guatemala accounted for nearly two-thirds of the increase, while citizens of Mexico declined slightly.
In Honduras, which closely monitors migrant transit, Venezuela, Cuba, and Haiti were the top three nationalities in December. Asia and Africa are heavily represented, with only 8 of December's top 15 nationalities from the Americas. Migration through Honduras and the Darién Gap has more than doubled since 2022, with a growing number arriving by air in Nicaragua and seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
As we noted in a June report, Honduras keeps a reasonably accurate count of migrants transiting its territory, because it requires people to register with the government in order to have permission to board a bus. A minority travel with smugglers and don’t register, but most do.
Honduras also reports the nationalities of “irregular” migrants in something close to real time, so here’s what in-transit migration looked like through December.
The top 15 nationalities transiting Honduras during December were:
Venezuela 13,803 (32% of 42,637 total)
Cuba 8,997 (21%)
Guinea 3,558 (8%)
Ecuador 3,324 (8%)
Haiti 3,001 (7%)
China 2,121 (5%)
India 1,472 (3%)
Colombia 1,461 (3%)
Senegal 706 (2%)
Chile (children of Haitians) 456 (1%)
Afghanistan 325 (1%)
Vietnam 325 (1%)
Peru 305 (1%)
Brazil 249 (some children of Haitians) (1%)
Angola 222 (1%)
The top 15 nationalities during all of 2023 were:
Venezuela 228,889 (42% of 545,364 total)
Cuba 85,969 (16%)
Haiti 82,249 (15%)
Ecuador 46,086 (8%)
Colombia 13,136 (2%)
Guinea 12,902 (2%)
China 12,184 (2%)
Senegal 8,964 (2%)
Mauritania 5,816 (1%)
Uzbekistan 5,153 (1%)
India 4,366 (1%)
Chile (children of Haitians) 3,004 (1%)
Egypt 2,845 (1%)
Afghanistan 2,729 (1%)
Angola 2,640 (0.5%)
A few things are notable about this data:
Nationalities from Asia and Africa are heavily represented. The Americas made up just 8 of December’s top 15 countries, and 6 of 2023’s top 15 countries. The situation in the Darién Gap is similar: only 7 of the top 15 nationalities counted by Panamanian authorities during the first 11 months of 2023 were Latin American or Caribbean.
The total is similar to that measured in the Darién Gap. Panama’s Public Security Ministry reported on Monday that a stunning 520,085 migrants passed through the Darien Gap in 2023. Honduras reported a similarly stunning 545,364. Both are more than double 2022’s totals.
Honduras’s total is greater than the Darién Gap, even though some migrants don’t register, because it includes many migrants who arrived by air in Nicaragua. Honduras’s neighbor to the south lies north of the Darién Gap, making it unnecessary to take that treacherous route, and does not require visas of visitors from most of the world. A growing number of people from Cuba, Haiti, and other continents have been taking circuitous commercial air routes, or often charter planes like one halted in France two weeks ago, to arrive in Managua and then travel overland to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Much of the increase in migration through Honduras reflects the growth of that route—especially those from African countries, whose numbers declined in the Darién Gap because Nicaragua presented a safer, shorter alternative. (Darién Gap travelers from outside the Americas often fly first to Ecuador or Brazil.)
Border Patrol has set a new record for migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border in a single month, exceeding 225,000 in the first 27 days of December. Data shared by Mexico's president show a big increase in Venezuelan arrivals despite 11 deportation flights to Caracas since October.
Border Patrol shares monthly data about its apprehensions of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border since October 1999. As this chart shows, during that time, the number of migrant apprehensions in a single month has never exceeded 225,000. (224,370 in May 2022, 222,018 in December 2022, 220,063 in March 2000.)
That threshold has now been passed. CBS News’s Camilo Montoya-Galvez reported yesterday, “U.S. Border Patrol agents took into custody more than 225,000 migrants who crossed the southern border—in between official crossings—during the first 27 days of December, according to the preliminary Department of Homeland Security [DHS] statistics.”
(This number does not include approximately 50,000 more migrants who come each month to ports of entry—official border crossings—usually with appointments.)
Montoya-Galvez shared Border Patrol’s daily averages, showing modest decline in migrant arrivals over the past week:
The current spike in migration peaked before Christmas, during the week starting on Dec. 14 and ending on Dec. 20, when Border Patrol averaged 9,773 daily apprehensions, according to the data. On several days that week, the agency processed more than 10,000 migrants in 24 hours.
Unlawful crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border have decreased this week, but remain at historically high levels. On Wednesday, Border Patrol processed 7,759 migrants, the statistics show.
In his morning press conference yesterday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador shared this slide of data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP, Border Patrol’s parent agency), depicting CBP’s monthly migrant encounters through the first 17 days of December. This slide appears to combine Border Patrol apprehensions with CBP’s port-of-entry encounters, so the numbers are a bit higher.
Combining encounters with migrants at the ports of entry and between them, the chart shows a daily average of 9,787 people per day over December 1-17, increasing to 10,187 per day over December 1-21.
The chart shows a sharp increase in daily arrivals of Venezuelan citizens, whose numbers dropped in October and November after the Biden administration’s October 5 announcement that it was resuming deportation flights to Caracas.
There have since been 11 such flights, DHS reported on December 27. It appears that despite the (not huge) risk of being on one of these roughly one-per-week flights, Venezuelan asylum seekers are again coming in greater numbers.
The Mexican government just released new data showing that it recorded 97,969 migrant encounters during November 2023, a new monthly record
The Mexican government just released new data showing that it recorded 97,969 “events of people in irregular migratory situation” during November 2023. That’s 5 percent more than October, and sets a new record for the most migrant encounters that Mexico has ever recorded in a month:
Migrants came from 111 countries. Of nationalities with more than 1,000 migrant encounters, those that increased the most from October to November were Mauritania (119%), the Dominican Republic (92%), and Honduras (65%). Those that declined the most from October to November were Cuba (-52%), Senegal (-28%), and Guinea (-11%). Venezuela, the number-one nationality, declined 8 percent.
Even as Mexico measured an increase in migration in November, two countries to the south, Panama and Honduras, reported double-digit percentage decreases.
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