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.

Border Updates will pause for the next two weeks as staff take vacation time. We will resume publication on June 23.

THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

• What we know about post-Title 42 migration

Very preliminary data indicate that, following a sharp fall in the days after the Title 42 policy’s end, numbers of U.S.-bound migrants have either flattened out or begun to increase again. Shelters are full in much of Mexico, meanwhile, where authorities continue to move large numbers of migrants toward the country’s southern border.

• Asylum-seeker lines form at ports of entry, recalling the now-banned practice of “metering”

Asylum seekers who have been unable to secure “CBP One” appointments have begun lining up, for days at a time, at ports of entry in Nogales and Tijuana. The situation resembles CBP’s practice of “metering”—limiting asylum seekers’ access to ports of entry, and only allowing a small number per day to be processed—which a federal court declared to be illegal in 2020.

• Family of O’odham man killed by Border Patrol speaks out

A few more details have emerged about the May 18 death of Raymond Mattia, a 58-year-old man shot multiple times by Border Patrol, while apparently unarmed, in the front yard of his house in the Tohono O’Odham Nation Reservation in Arizona. Family and friends have held protests and are pushing for accountability.

The Full Update

What we know about post-Title 42 migration

Three weeks have passed since the end of the pandemic-era Title 42 policy, which expelled migrants 2.8 million times from the U.S.-Mexico border over 38 months, regardless of asylum needs. Contrary to many predictions, the period following Title 42’s end saw a sharp drop in the number of migrants encountered at the border, from an early May high of over 10,000 per day to a mid-May low of less than 3,000 per day. (See WOLA’s May 19 Border Update.)

This drop is unlikely to persist for long, and early indications point to the number of migrant encounters already beginning to recover after touching their lowest level.

The quick drop after May 11, the last day of Title 42, likely owed to migrants adopting a “wait and see” stance amid uncertainty about the Biden administration’s new policies. On May 10, the departments of Homeland Security and Justice put in place a new administrative rule curtailing access to asylum, with a few exceptions, for all non-Mexican migrants (1) who were not first rejected for asylum in another country through which they passed, and (2) who did not make an appointment at a land port of entry (official border crossing) using CBP’s smartphone app, CBP One. Citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who meet both of those conditions may be deported into Mexico.

Lacking clarity about how this rule will play out, migrants who intend to seek asylum are crossing in much smaller numbers, at least for now. But very partial data seem to point to overall migration numbers ticking up slightly during the final days of May.

Along the route that U.S.-bound migrants take, most countries’ migration authorities share monthly data within two or three weeks after a month ends. As we await this data, we have partial clues about what post-May 11 migratory flows have looked like. The few available indicators, though, mostly uphold the idea of a reduction in migration followed by a gradual increase.

In the United States, Border Patrol Chief Raúl Ortiz’s Twitter account shares periodic updates with some of the agency’s enforcement statistics from previous days. During May, these show Border Patrol’s migrant apprehensions rising during the first third of the month, falling during the second third, and leveling off or even recovering a bit during the final third.

Ortiz’s “past week” tweets show a continuous decline since May 11: a per-day average of 7,850 apprehensions on May 6, 9,680 on May 12, 4,068 on May 19, and 3,149 on May 26. However, a “past 96 hours” tweet posted May 30 showed a daily average higher than what it was in Ortiz’s two previous updates: 3,396 apprehensions per day. That is 16 percent more than what the Chief had reported in a “past 72 hours” tweet 8 days earlier, on May 22 (2,917).

We have close to real-time data from Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector, thanks to a “dashboard” that El Paso, Texas’s municipal government posts to its website. That resource does not show any increase in migration during the latter days of May. It shows 7-day averages of 1,522 Border Patrol migrant apprehensions per day during the week ending May 14, 734 per day the week ending May 21, and 672 per day the week ending May 28. As of May 31, the 7-day average in El Paso had dropped to 543.

The leveling-off, or slight increase, indicated by Chief Ortiz’s tweets does not appear to be happening in El Paso.

Honduras is the only country along the migration route that publicly shares data in something close to real time. Its early data do appear to point to some recent increase in migration transiting Honduras, after only a modest decline.

The number of migrants registering with Honduran authorities reached an average of 918 per day on May 1-10, the end of the Title 42 period. That fell to 805 per day the following week, and 690 the week after that. Interestingly, the drop from post-Title 42 week 1 to week 2 was entirely Venezuelan: the population of non-Venezuelan migrants actually increased.

Then, during the final four days that Honduras reports—May 25-28—the daily average increases once again, to 737 per day. Much of the increase is Venezuelan migration.

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 Week in Brief:

• CBP reports two fatal incidents involving Border Patrol

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released two notices this week about fatal incidents involving Border Patrol. Anadith Tanay Reyes Álvarez died on May 17, her 9th day in Border Patrol custody in Texas. Her mother said her appeals for medical assistance did not get a timely response. On the evening of the 18th, agents shot a 58-year-old member of the Tohono O’odham nation multiple times in southern Arizona. The shooting was captured on agents’ body-worn cameras.

• Mexico moves migrants away from its borders, mostly

Even as post-Title 42 migrant arrivals slow at the U.S.-Mexico border, the picture inside Mexico is confusing. Mexican authorities have temporarily closed some migrant detention centers while moving migrants from its northern and southern border zones to the nation’s interior. In Mexico City, the closure of a municipal shelter has left hundreds of migrants occupying a park near the offices of the government’s refugee agency.

• More than 40,000 people migrated through Panama’s Darién Gap in April

April 2023 was the third-heaviest month ever for migrants transiting the Darién Gap, a treacherous jungle region straddling Colombia and Panama. 63 percent were from Venezuela. As the U.S., Colombian, and Panamanian governments carry out a “60-day surge campaign” launched April 20, senior Biden administration officials are considering sending U.S. military personnel.

• Humanitarian parole program swamped with signups

Documents obtained by CBS News show more than 1.5 million people in the United States have signed up to sponsor migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, for a new  humanitarian parole program that accepts 30,000 people per month. The largest number of applications are for Haitians.

The Full Update

CBP reports two fatal incidents involving Border Patrol

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released two notices this week about fatal incidents involving Border Patrol: one in the agency’s custody, and one in a use of force incident.

On May 21, CBP offered some information about the May 17 death of an eight-year-old Honduran girl in a Border Patrol facility in Harlingen, Texas. Anadith Tanay Reyes Álvarez died—possibly of influenza, though medical examiners have not yet issued a finding—on her family’s ninth day in custody. Her parents had provided documents to Border Patrol showing she suffered from a heart condition and sickle cell anemia.

The family had turned themselves in to Border Patrol in Texas on May 9, two days before the Title 42 pandemic expulsion policy came to an end, a time when Border Patrol was apprehending more than 10,000 people per day. This may have prolonged the family’s time in custody, although the Associated Press reported that by May 14, the average time in custody border-wide had fallen to 77 hours while the rate of new apprehensions dropped rapidly. Under normal circumstances, migrants are meant to spend no more than 72 hours in Border Patrol’s austere holding facilities.

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 week:

• Migration declines in the days after Title 42’s end

The days after May 11, when the Title 42 policy came to an end, saw migration at the border reduce by more than half from a week earlier. Migrants and smugglers, unclear about the implications of new Biden administration limits on asylum, appear to be in “wait and see” mode, while Mexico and other countries have increased their security-force presence along the migration route. Some indicators point to the lull being temporary.

• Migration increased slightly in April, Title 42’s last full month

CBP reported a 10 percent increase in the number of migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border from March to April. Much of the increase was due to citizens of Venezuela, who appeared to face a lower probability of Title 42 expulsion into Mexico than in prior months. CBP gave asylum seekers an average of 743 “CBP One” appointments per day at ports of entry.

• Haiti appears to lead recent grants of humanitarian parole

Despite a lack of government reporting, a reading of CBP port-of-entry arrival data seems to indicate that Haiti is the nationality that has most frequently gained humanitarian parole into the United States, under a recently launched Biden administration program for four countries, in March and April. Haitian parolees are followed by citizens of Cuba, Venezuela (whose numbers are declining), and Nicaragua.

• CBP continues to make asylum seekers spend days in open-air camps near San Diego

San Diego-area advocates filed a strongly worded, vividly illustrated complaint with DHS about Border Patrol’s recent practice of leaving asylum seekers to wait for days—with minimal food, water, shelter, or medical attention—between the border wall’s two layers.

Migration declines in the days after Title 42’s end

In the four days leading up to May 11, the final day of the Title 42 pandemic expulsion authority, the number of migrants whom U.S. authorities encountered at the border averaged 10,100 per day. After May 11, amid uncertainty about how the Biden administration would carry out its new restrictions on access to asylum, unauthorized entries at the border dropped 56 percent, to 4,400 per day.

The numbers come from Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Border and Immigration Policy Blas Nuñez Neto, who told reporters on May 17 that they include a 98% drop in the number of Venezuelan migrants ending up in Border Patrol custody. (As noted below, Venezuelan migrant encounters between ports of entry had leapt upward in April.)

“At Gate 42 of the border wall with El Paso, the number of migrants arriving has dwindled since Friday,” the New York Times reported. The Washington Post reported that 21,000 migrants were in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody on May 15, “down about 30 percent from last week’s peak.” This is despite a Florida federal judge’s temporary restraining order prohibiting CBP from releasing migrants without notices to appear, a faster process used during times of overcrowding.

Nuñez Neto attributed the drop to “the consequences that we have strengthened and put in place for unlawful entry.” These include the Biden administration’s new rule mostly banning asylum for non-Mexicans who fail to make an appointment or be rejected for asylum in at least one other country, as well as expanded use of “expedited removal” procedures forcing asylum seekers to defend their cases within days. Among reasons for the decline in migration, Nuñez Neto also cited new legal pathways for some migrants, like humanitarian parole and the CBP One smartphone app, as well as “the actions of our foreign partners”—especially increased deployments of security forces in Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, and Colombia.

Nuñez Neto said on May 15 that the U.S. government had already deported 2,400 people under the new “transit ban” rule, most of them Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans—but also some Mexicans—back across the border into Mexico. Mexico, in turn, has begun transporting these deportees to its southernmost states, away from the U.S. border. A tweet from CBP praised a Mexican government flight that transported Venezuelan migrants from Reynosa, across from Texas, to “interior parts of Mexico.”

Mexico also deployed 690 more members of its armed forces and National Guard—for a total of 26,535—to its northern and southern borders. State police forces in border states like Chihuahua also increased their presence.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official warned that “it is still too early to draw any definitive conclusions” about migration patterns. A key cause of the post-May 11 drop is a temporary condition: migrants’ confusion about the administration’s new policies.

As WOLA explained in a column published by MSNBC, the drop owes in large part to migrants, and smugglers, adopting a “wait and see” stance as the administration rolls out its new measures. “It’s not surprising that migrants who’ve reached Mexico are pausing before taking a leap into the unknown,” we wrote, noting that past “wait and see” moments brought sharp reductions in migration in 2014, 2017, and 2020, only to be followed soon after by increases. Something similar is likely to happen in the coming months.

Social media—which often includes a heavy dose of misinformation—plays a greater role than ever in migrants’ “wait and see” calculations. They “have increasingly turned to TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites not just for the comfort of family contact but also for updates on the policy change and how it might affect them,” Marisa Gerber reported at the Los Angeles Times. “The hashtag #titulo42 was viewed more than 109 million times on TikTok by Friday afternoon,” the Washington Post reported.

In Mexico’s border cities, shelters appear to be emptier: at about 40 percent capacity, perhaps, in Ciudad Juárez. Evidence that the drop in migration may be fleeting, however, comes from areas further south in Mexico and elsewhere along the northbound route, where numbers remain high. UNHCR Mexico tweeted its concern on May 17 about migrant shelters in the country’s south, which are reaching capacity. “In addition to the people arriving from the south, some shelters have already received Venezuelans deported from the United States, who have no information about their process, and face a lack of reception capacity in Mexico and uncertainty about their legal (or migratory) status.”

A consular official cited in Mexico’s La Jornada reported “a lot of people entering through the border between Guatemala and Honduras” on May 12. “There we saw the International Red Cross, UNHCR and IOM, with camps. There is a lot of movement of people. The city of Esquipulas [Guatemala]… was full of people going north.”

Migration increased slightly in April, Title 42’s last full month

CBP reported on May 17 that the agency encountered 211,401 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in April, the last full month of the Title 42 policy. That is the 9th-largest monthly total of the Biden administration’s 27 months, and a 10 percent increase over March (191,956).

Some of that increase is seasonal. The milder spring months are often the busiest of the year for migration at the border. Two thirds of April’s encounters were with single adults, whose numbers increased 5 percent over March. People arriving as family units increased 28 percent, while unaccompanied children decreased 7 percent.