Adam Isacson

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Developments

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met yesterday in Cartagena, Colombia with the foreign ministers of Colombia and Panama to discuss greater cooperation to manage migration through the Darién Gap, a treacherous jungle region through which about a million people have migrated since 2022.

The three nations committed to more repatriations (like U.S.-funded flights that Panama has begun to operate); greater information sharing; more dialogue and coordination; more development aid for communities along the migration route; more efforts to integrate migrants; and “a plan of action with concrete and realistic steps to strengthen Colombian and Panamanian state presence along their shared border.” The officials did not specify what those concrete steps would be.

• “Joint Statement: Trilateral on Irregular Migration” (Department of Homeland Security, August 26, 2024).
• Alejandro N. Mayorkas, “Secretary Mayorkas Delivers Remarks at the Third Trilateral Meeting” (Department of Homeland Security, August 26, 2024).
• “Colombia Respalda Politica de Deportacion de Migrantes de Panama y Eu” (Agence France Presse, Milenio (Mexico), August 26, 2024).

The Ciudad Juárez-based human rights group Comprehensive Human Rights in Action (DHIA) revealed that for months, officials from Mexico’s migration agency (National Immigration Institute, INM) have been detaining migrants who arrive in the border city’s airport and placing them on buses bound for Villahermosa, Tabasco, in Mexico’s far south. Unaccompanied children were among those placed on the buses, in clear violation of government policy and human rights, DHIA alleged.

• Teofilo Alvarado, “Violento Inm a Ninos Migrantes Que Llegan a Juarez, los Regresa al Sur Mediante Procesos Sumarios: Abogada” (Norte (Ciudad Juarez Mexico), August 26, 2024).

As repression intensifies in Venezuela following the Nicolás Maduro regime’s illegitimate claim to have won July 28 presidential elections, video posted to Twitter appeared to show a long line of Venezuelans leaving the country along the border with Brazil.

• “Alerta Mundial @Alertamundonews on Twitter” (Twitter, August 26, 2024).

Diplomats from Bolivia and Chile met to discuss border cooperation ahead of a possible new post-election wave of people fleeing Venezuela.

• Roberto Martinez, ““Controlar Flujos Migratorios”: La Reunion Entre Chile y Bolivia para Definir Estrategias de Cooperacion Ante Crisis de Venezuela” (La Tercera (Chile), August 26, 2024).

The chief of police of the Mexican border state of Chihuahua said that his department has received reports from U.S. counterparts warning that members of Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s largest organized crime group, have passed through the state en route to the United States.

• Julian Resendiz, “Chihuahua Police Chief on Alert, Cooperating With U.S. Authorities to Keep Tabs on Gang Members” (Border Report, August 26, 2024).

A Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas has suspended a Biden administration initiative that would offer a pathway to residency and citizenship for up to half a million undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens. The temporary restraining order responds to a lawsuit brought by 16 Republican state attorneys-general, led by Texas and America First Legal, the hard-line litigation outfit managed by former Trump immigration advisor Stephen Miller. Similar Republican coalitions have challenged other Biden pro-immigration initiatives before the federal judiciary’s conservative Fifth Circuit, with mixed success.

• Hamed Aleaziz, Miriam Jordan, Serge F. Kovaleski, “Judge Pauses Biden Administration Program That Aids Undocumented Spouses” (The New York Times, August 26, 2024).
• Valerie Gonzalez, “Judge in Texas Orders Pause on Biden Program That Offers Legal Status to Spouses of Us Citizens” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 26, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

A Texas Observer investigation revealed that the state’s Department of Public Safety has entered into a five-year, $5.3 million contract to use “Tangles,” a controversial AI-powered surveillance software platform that the agency first employed along the border for the state government’s “Operation Lone Star” security crackdown. The software essentially allows authorities to track the location of a person’s cellphone without obtaining a judicial warrant, using mobile advertising identification data.

• Francesca D’annunzio, “Texas State Police Gear Up for Massive Expansion of Surveillance Tech” (The Texas Observer, August 26, 2024).

Border Report noted that a bridge that Border Patrol has been constructing over the Tijuana River, which flows out of the Mexican border city into U.S. territory, could cause flooding in downtown Tijuana “if agents fail to open the gates fast enough during a storm or in the event of a malfunction.”

• Salvador Rivera, “Border Patrol Bridge Project Over Tijuana River Criticized as ‘Boondoggle’” (Border Report, August 26, 2024).

“Trump-style immigration restrictions have gone mainstream among 2024 voters,” concluded a grim analysis of public opinion about immigration by Nicole Narea at Vox. “More voters of all stripes now want to see immigration levels decrease than at any point since the early 2000s, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks fueled a rise in nativism.”

• Nicole Narea, “What Immigration Policies Do Americans Actually Want?” (Vox, August 27, 2024).

On the Right

• Thomas Homan, “Democrats Lie Big About Our Border Crisis. Compare Senate and House Bills for Proof” (Fox News, August 26, 2024).
• Conn Carroll, “The Democratic Party’s Secret Border Deal With Mexico” (The Washington Examiner, August 26, 2024).
• Chris Nesi, Jennie Taer, “Exclusive | Brutal Venezuelan Gang Violence Spills Into Quiet Suburb From the Sanctuary City Next Door— Despite Efforts to Keep Migrants Out” (The New York Post, August 26, 2024).

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Developments

Panama sent a second U.S.-funded deportation plane to Colombia on August 24, following a flight on August 20. The Colombian citizens aboard were detained after migrating through the treacherous Darién Gap jungle between the two nations. Panama plans flights to Ecuador on August 29, to Colombia on August 30, and to India on September 3.

• “Thcartwright @Thcartwright on Twitter” (Twitter, August 24, 2024).

Roger Mojica, the new director of Panama’s Migration Service (SMN), told local media that the country’s National Border Service (SENAFRONT) force is working with the U.S. government on “a plan to improve the profiling and biometrics of migrants” passing through the Darién route. Mojica voiced concern that an exodus of 4 to 5 million Venezuelan migrants could result from repression and turmoil following the Venezuelan government’s illegitimate claim to have won July 28 elections.

• Camila Riano, “Panama y ee.uu. Fortalecen Medidas para Enfrentar Inminente Migracion Masiva” (ECO TV Panama, August 25, 2024).

According to EFE citing an August 25 Panamanian government statement, 231,089 people have migrated through the Darién Gap jungles so far in 2024. That is fewer than 333,704 during the first eight months of 2023. Of these migrants, 66.3 percent have been Venezuelan, while Colombian and Ecuadorian citizens have been nearly equal at 6.3 percent each. Chinese citizens are in fourth place with 5.2 percent of the total; 4.8 percent have been Haitian. Migration has been dropping: from 31,049 people in June, to 20,519 in July, to 9,497 so far in August. (Panama’s migration authority has not yet updated its presentation of official statistics.)

• “El 66 % de los 230.000 Migrantes Que Han Cruzado el Darien en 2024 Son Venezolanos” (EFE, El Universo (Guayaquil Ecuador), August 25, 2024).

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is in Cartagena, Colombia for a meeting with the foreign ministers of Colombia and Panama to discuss “irregular migration and countering transnational criminal organizations.”

• “Eeuu, Colombia y Panama se Reunen para Tratar Migracion Irregular y Crimen Transnacional” (EFE, Swissinfo.ch, August 25, 2024).
• “Steve Herman @[email protected] on Mastodon” (journa.host, Mastodon, August 25, 2024).

Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on August 25, Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance repeatedly evaded questions about whether a new Trump administration would seek to separate migrant families apprehended at the border, as happened in 2017-18.

• Alexandra Marquez, “Vance Dodges on Whether Trump’s Immigration Policy Would Lead to Family Separations” (NBC News, August 25, 2024).
• Julianne Mcshane, “Jd Vance Leaves the Door Open to Family Separations in a New Trump Administration” (Mother Jones, August 25, 2024).

During an August 22 campaign visit to the border in southeast Arizona, Donald Trump held a press conference alongside a stretch of border wall that was in fact built during the Obama administration, the Washington Post reported. “Smugglers have breached the barrier thousands of times, including while Trump was in office,” the Post’s analysis continued. “The wall has been tunneled under and climbed over. It has been walked around and sawed through. It has not stopped migration any more that it has stopped drug and human smuggling.”

• Erin Patrick o’connor, Isaac Arnsdorf, Marianne Levine, “Trump Event at Wall Obama Built Highlights an Unkept Promise” (The Washington Post, August 25, 2024).

Reports published last Friday by the Arizona Daily Star and the Tucson Sentinel fact-checked some of the inaccuracies in Trump’s claims about migrants’ participation in crime, the number of migrant apprehensions during his tenure, and the notion that Venezuela is sending the occupants of its prisons and mental institutions to the border.

• Emily Bregel, “Trump’s Arizona Border Visit Heavy on Security Talk, False Claims” (The Arizona Daily Star, August 23, 2024).

The Trump campaign is presenting those claims at a website it calls “Kamala Border Bloodbath.”

• Brett Samuels, “Trump Campaign Launches Website Targeting Harris on ‘Border Bloodbath’” (The Hill, August 23, 2024).

A team of trainers from Spain and South America were in Ciudad Juárez to offer training to the Chihuahua State Police force’s SWAT team, Border Report reported.

• Julian Resendiz, “Foreign Advisers Help Sharpen Chihuahua Swat Team’s Skills” (Border Report, August 23, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

The New York Times’s Hamed Aleaziz examined the sharp drop in Border Patrol migrant apprehensions that followed the Biden administration’s early June imposition of a rule restricting access to asylum between the border’s ports of entry. While the rule has made the border quieter at a key electoral moment, “migrant activists say Mr. Biden’s executive order is weeding out far too many people, including those who should be allowed to have their cases heard.”

• Hamed Aleaziz, “Biden’s Asylum Restrictions Are Working as Predicted, and as Warned” (The New York Times, August 24, 2024).

The Houston Chronicle looked at data showing that the “Operation Lone Star” border crackdown carried out by Texas’s Republican state government has not reduced migration to Texas any more than to other parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.

• Benjamin Wermund, “New Border Data Shows Texas’ Migrant Crackdown Hasn’t Driven Down Crossings More Than in Other States” (The Houston Chronicle, August 23, 2024).

At the American Immigration Council’s Immigration Impact site, Dara Lind published an explainer about the immigration provisions of “Project 2025,” a plan for a second Trump administration drawn up by a team of experts and officials close to the Trump campaign. The document contains “a clear plan to restrict legal immigration of all kinds, while laying the foundations for a potential campaign of mass deportation.” These “foundations,” however, do not include an actual detailed deportation plan.

• Dara Lind, “What Project 2025 Says About Immigration” (American Immigration Council, August 23, 2024).

At the Washington Post, columnist Eduardo Porter looked at the logistical obstacles that would stand in the way of Donald Trump’s pledge to carry out mass deportations of several million undocumented migrants if elected. “Flying 11 million people out would require 58,201 flights in fully loaded Boeing 737-800s.”

• Eduardo Porter, “Trump’s Deportation Plan Would Be Nearly Impossible to Implement” (The Washington Post, August 26, 2024).

The Democratic Party’s “overall message” on the border and migration—especially asylum—during the 2024 campaign and last week’s party convention “has been decidedly more hard-line than it has been in decades,” noted a New York Times news analysis. Kamala Harris is expected to release a full immigration platform in a few weeks, the Times reported.

• Jazmine Ulloa, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, “On Immigration, Harris and Democrats Walk a Delicate — and Harder — Line” (The New York Times, August 25, 2024).

The New York Times profiled Juan Ciscomani, a Mexican-born Republican who represents southeast Arizona, a swing district, in the House of Representatives. Ciscomani’s support for the Republican House majority’s hardline border bill (H.R. 2, which passed the House on a party-line vote in May 2023) could cost him support against his Democratic challenger in November, the Times noted.

• Robert Jimison, “In Critical Border District, Republican Pairs Immigrant Story With Tough Stance” (The New York Times, August 24, 2024).

In Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state, “The phenomenon of people migrating on bicycles“ along the searingly hot coastal route toward Oaxaca ”began about two years ago,” according to a report by Rogelio Ramos in Chiapas Paralelo.

• Rogelio Ramos, “Migrar en Bicicleta” (Chiapas Paralelo (Chiapas), August 25, 2024).

On the Right

• Katherine Donlevy, “Trump Supporters Rip Kamala Harris for Showing Off Border Walls She Claims to Hate in Campaign Ad” (The New York Post, August 24, 2024).

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Developments

In her convention speech accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Vice President Kamala Harris called for more border security—including passage of a bill that would cement asylum restrictions in place—along with increased legal pathways for migrants. Here is the relevant text:

let me be clear, after decades in law enforcement, I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border. Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The Border Patrol endorsed it. But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign, so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal.

Well, I refuse to play politics with our security, and here is my pledge to you. As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law. I know — I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.

• “Full Transcript of Kamala Harris’s Democratic Convention Speech” (The New York Times, August 23, 2024).

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump visited the border in Cochise County, southeastern Arizona, where he met with local law enforcement and representatives of the Border Patrol agents’ union. At an hour-long press conference, the ex-president drew attention to crimes committed by migrants, featuring some victims’ relatives. Trump falsely portrayed Kamala Harris as being a “border czar” who favored open borders, and inaccurately accused the Biden administration of allowing 20 million migrants to enter the United States.

(CBP’s migrant encounters at the border totaled about 8.2 million during the Biden administration, and about 4.1 or 4.2 million releases into the U.S. interior. Another 520,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan citizens entered—at airports, not the border—after applying for humanitarian parole.)

Standing between a tall stretch of border wall and a pile of unused steel beams, the new president of the Border Patrol agents’ union, Paul Perez, said, “To my right is what we call Trump wall. This was wall that was built under President Trump. To my left, we have what we call Kamala wall. It’s just sitting there doing nothing, lying down.”

• Adriana Gomez Licon, Jonathan J. Cooper, “Trump Uses a Stretch of Border Wall and a Pile of Steel Beams in Arizona to Contrast With Democrats” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 22, 2024).
• Rebecca Picciotto, “Trump’s Arizona Trip Keeps Immigration Front-and-Center, as Democrats Sharpen Border Messaging” (CNBC, NBC 5 Chicago, August 23, 2024).
• Kelsey Walsh, Lalee Ibssa, Soo Rin Kim, “Trump Slams Harris on Immigration During Border Visit in Battleground Arizona” (ABC News, August 22, 2024).
• Peter Valencia, “Fact-Checking Donald Trump’s Visit to the Arizona-Mexico Border” (Arizona’s Family, August 22, 2024).
• Anna Giaritelli, “Crime Victim Families Endorse Trump at Border: ‘He Needs to Be in Office’” (The Washington Examiner, August 22, 2024).
• “Trump Visits Border Wall in Arizona, Trades Accusations With Democrats on Immigration Policy” (CBS News, August 22, 2024).
• “Trump Drags Harris Over Border Policy as She Readies Acceptance Speech” (Politico, August 22, 2024).
• Shelby Slade, Stephanie Murray, “Where Is Donald Trump Today? Here’s What to Know About His Visit to Border, Arizona Rally” (The Arizona Republic, August 22, 2024).

Roll Call noted that the former president’s remarks often wandered away from the border and migration issue. While on site, Trump abruptly ended an interview with NewsNation reporter Ali Bradley, who had just asked him about the July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania: “We’re in danger standing here talking. So let’s not talk any longer.”

• John T. Bennett, “Trump Jumps Off Script Right From the Start of Event at Border Wall” (Roll Call, August 22, 2024).
• Ali Bradley, Jeff Arnold, “‘We’re in danger here’: Trump whisked away from NewsNation interview“ (NewsNation, August 22, 2024).

An expansion of the CBP One smartphone app’s geographic coverage goes into effect today, allowing asylum seekers to make appointments at U.S.-Mexico border ports of entry while in Mexico’s southern-border states of Chiapas and Tabasco. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has not expanded daily appointments beyond the current 1,450 per day, even as new asylum access restrictions have made the app most migrants’ only path to the U.S. asylum system at the border.

• Edgar H. Clemente, Maria Verza, “Us Expands Area in Mexico to Apply for Border Asylum Appointments, Hoping to Slow Push North” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 23, 2024).

A letter from numerous U.S. and Mexican civil society organizations, organized by the Mexico-based Institute for Women in Migration (IMUMI), called on Mexico’s government to do far more to protect and accommodate people awaiting CBP One appointments. “People await appointments in Mexico’s territory for up to 7 months,” the letter observed. “The extended stay has generated overcrowding in shelters…which, together with authorities’ failure to provide decent and safe spaces for waiting, has forced many people to settle in informal camps.”

• “Civil Society Organizations and Human Rights Defenders Demand Security and Protection for People Awaiting Cbp One Appointments in Mexico” (Numerous organizations, IMUMI (Mexico), August 22, 2024).

Following a U.S.-backed deportation flight carrying 28 migrants to Colombia on August 20, Panama’s government announced that it will soon carry out removal flights to Ecuador (August 29), India (August 30), and China (September 3), along with additional flights to Colombia. All of those aboard the planes are migrants captured after walking for days through the treacherous Darién Gap jungle route.

• Elida Moreno, “Panama Announces More Migrant Deportation Flights to Ecuador, India and China” (Reuters, Reuters, August 22, 2024).
• “Los Migrantes Ecuatorianos Que Crucen el Darien Seran los Siguientes Deportados de Panama” (El Universo (Guayaquil Ecuador), August 22, 2024).

Four men and two women from Colombia were taken to a hospital “for varying levels of injury” after falling from the border wall near Otay Mesa, southeast of San Diego, local television news reported.

• Danielle Dawson, “Six Migrants Taken to Hospital After Fall From Border Wall” (Fox 5 San Diego, August 22, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

In an article at the Texas Observer, Brian Elmore, an El Paso emergency medical physician who co-founded the Hope Border Institute’s Clínica Hope facility in Ciudad Juárez, vividly described what it is like trying to save lives in a sector of the border that has seen Border Patrol’s count of migrant deaths—mostly from heat exhaustion and dehydration—more than quadruple since 2021. “El Paso is witnessing the convergence of two deadly trends: climate change and border militarization,” Elmore wrote.

• Brian Elmore, “In el Paso, a Migrant Death Crisis Emerges Amid Extreme Heat” (The Texas Observer, August 22, 2024).

Venezuelan migrants and Mexican shelter operators in Mexico’s northern border cities, especially Ciudad Juárez, told EFE that they fear an intensified exodus of Venezuelans following the Maduro regime’s illegitimate claim to have won July 28th presidential elections and subsequent political repression.

• “Venezolanos en Frontera de Mexico Temen una Ola Migratoria” (EFE, Milenio (Mexico), August 22, 2024).

A UNHCR document reports that 63,672 citizens of Ecuador sought asylum in the United States between 2021 and 2023. Of 339 Ecuadorians the UN agency interviewed in countries along the U.S.-bound migration route, 63 percent said they were fleeing “generalized violence” and 56 percent said they were victims of violence.

• “Ecuador: Mapeo de Desplazamiento de Personas Ecuatorianas en la Region 2023 – Junio 2024” (UN Refugee Agency, August 22, 2024).

On the Right

• Nolan Rappaport, “Undocumented Immigrants Are Streaming Across Our Border — How Many Are Terrorists?” (The Hill, August 22, 2024).
• Startling Stats Factsheet: Nationwide Border Encounters Surpass 10 Million Under Biden-Harris Administration as Americans Suffer (Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives, Wednesday, August 21, 2024).

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Developments

A few speakers addressed the border and immigration policy at the Democratic Party’s convention on August 21. Most of the messaging surrounded efforts to combat organized crime and fentanyl trafficking. Some, though, attacked Republican nominee Donald Trump for urging Republican legislators to kill the “Border Act,” a bill resulting from negotiations between Democratic and Republican senators that failed in February. That compromise legislation’s provisions included some items that Democrats would not have supported in the past, like a ban on asylum access at busy times and a big increase in ICE detention capacity.

Analysts and pundits saw some of the Democrats’ convention rhetoric calling for tougher border security measures and limits on asylum—language reflected in the party’s platform—as indicative of a rightward shift within the party on border and migration policy, responding to similar shifts in public opinion.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris addresses the convention this evening.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, Fin Gomez, “Dnc Speakers Address Immigration as Party Embraces Tougher Border Measures” (CBS News, August 21, 2024).
• Sahil Kapur, “‘The Border Is Broken’: Democrats Solidify Shift to Tougher Migration Stance at Convention” (NBC News, August 21, 2024).
• Christian Paz, “The Major Political Transformation Flying Under the Radar at the Dnc” (Vox, August 22, 2024).
• Robert Moore, “Veronica Escobar Speaks About Immigration Policy at Democratic National Convention” (El Paso Matters, August 21, 2024).
• Billal Rahman, “Trump Set to Visit U.S.-Mexico Border Ahead of Harris Dnc Speech” (Newsweek, August 22, 2024).

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will make a campaign visit to the border today in Sierra Vista, Cochise County, southeast Arizona. It is a part of the border where voters trend Republican, leading Democrats in registrations by a two-to-one margin, unlike the much “bluer” Nogales area just to the west.

Trump’s event—with County Sheriff Mark Dannels, a longtime proponent of hard-line border policies, and representatives of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing most agents—will be closed to the public. Local Democrats are deriding the visit as a “photo op.”

• Anna Giaritelli, “Trump Tries to Upstage Harris Convention Limelight With Southern Border Visit” (The Washington Examiner, August 22, 2024).
• Sarah Lapidus, Stephanie Murray, “Trump Turns to Arizona’s Southern Border to Counter Harris Momentum” (The Arizona Republic, August 22, 2024).
• Derek Staahl, “Arizona Border Towns Prepare for Trump’s Visit to Cochise County” (Arizona’s Family, August 22, 2024).
• Caitlin Sievers, “Arizona Dems Say Harris Will Champion Border Reform, Unlike Trump’s Photo Ops” (The Arizona Mirror, August 22, 2024).

At an event yesterday in Edinburg, Texas with “hundreds” of agents in attendance, the Border Patrol union offered its election endorsement to Texas’s arch-conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R). (The National Border Patrol Council first endorsed Donald Trump during the 2016 primary campaign.) The crowd booed when Kamala Harris’s name was mentioned, Border Report reported. “Cruz said a Spanish curse word to the crowd when referring to the administration and drew cheers from the Border Patrol agents assembled.”

• Sandra Sanchez, “Border Patrol Union Endorses Cruz” (Border Report, August 21, 2024).

Brazil is suspending visa-free travel to citizens of some Asian nations, including India, Nepal, and Vietnam. Some of those travelers have been seeking asylum upon arrival in Brazil, then continuing their journey northward, through the Darién Gap and toward the United States.

• Mauricio Savarese, “Brazil Will Restrict Entry to Some Asian Nationals, Aiming to Curb Migration to the Us and Canada” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 21, 2024).
• Ricardo Brito, “Brazil to Tighten Entry Rules to Curb Migration to North America” (Reuters, August 21, 2024).

The number of migrants passing through the Darién Gap in August totaled more than 8,000 by August 19 or 20, according to coverage of a U.S.-backed deportation flight from Panama to Colombia in Spain’s El País, which cited the new director of the country’s National Migration Service (SNM). That is about 400 people per day: a sharp drop from roughly 1,000 per day during the first half of 2024 and over 2,000 per day at times in late 2023. It would be the lowest daily average measured in the Darién in any month since April 2022.

• Santiago Torrado, “Panama Comienza la Deportacion de Migrantes Que Cruzaron la Selva del Darien” (El Pais (Spain), August 21, 2024).

The current drop in migration at the border led Texas’s Republican state government to pause, in late June, its program of busing some released migrants to Democratic-governed cities, the New York Times reported.

• J. David Goodman, “Texas Stopped Busing Migrants to Democratic Cities in Late June” (The New York Times, August 21, 2024).
• Megan Stringer, “How Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Made the Border a Top Priority for Democrats” (Axios, August 21, 2024).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is continuing legal actions against the state’s charities assisting recently released asylum seekers and migrants. He is demanding that a representative from the Team Brownsville migrant shelter be deposed by the end of the month “to answer how the NGO assists migrants—among other things,” noted Aarón Torres of the Dallas Morning News.

• Chelsie Kramer, “Texas Attorney General Paxton Continues Fight Against Ngos That Serve Migrants” (American Immigration Council, August 21, 2024).
• “Aaron Torres @aarontorres_ on Twitter” (Twitter, August 21, 2024).

In September, Mexico’s refugee agency (Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid, COMAR) plans to open a new facility, or “Multiservice Center,” to attend to migrants in the country’s southern border-zone city of Tapachula, Chiapas. A short drive from the Guatemala border, Tapachula’s perpetually overwhelmed COMAR office receives the largest number of migrants arriving and applying for asylum—two-thirds of Mexico’s applications so far this year.

• “Anuncian Nuevo Centro para Atender a Migrantes en Tapachula, Mexico” (EFE, Prensa Libre (Guatemala), August 21, 2024).

Discussing the foreign policy of the administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who leaves office on September 30, Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena hailed what she called the “Mexican Human Mobility Model,” claiming, “We have changed the narrative even in the United States, which previously did not talk about structural causes, this has been achieved thanks to President López Obrador.”

• “El Gobierno de Mexico Implementa una Politica Exterior Humanista Cercana a la Gente” (Presidencia de Mexico, August 21, 2024).

Guatemalan police arrested seven people accused of being the smugglers who arranged the journey of some of the 53 migrants who died while locked in the back of an overheated tractor-trailer near San Antonio, Texas in June 2022.

• Sonia Perez D., “Guatemalan Police Arrest 7 Accused of Trafficking the 53 Migrants Who Asphyxiated in Texas in 2022” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 21, 2024).

Prosecutors in Mexico’s violence-plagued border state of Tamaulipas won convictions and long prison terms for 11 members of the once-powerful Zetas cartel responsible for killing 122 migrants, whom they pulled off of buses, tortured, and massacred in 2010 and 2011.

• “Mexico Convicts 11 Cartel Gunmen in Killings of 122 Bus Passengers Near Us Border Over 2 Years” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 21, 2024).

Hitmen attacked, and gravely wounded, the chief magistrate of the Tamaulipas state supreme court. The attack took place in the state capital, Ciudad Victoria, which is distant from the border itself.

• Carlos Alvarez Acevedo, “Atacan a Balazos al Magistrado Presidente del Tribunal Electoral de Tamaulipas” (Revista Zeta (Tijuana Mexico), August 21, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

A document from UnidosUS (formerly known as the National Council of La Raza) endorsed “firm border enforcement,” particularly improvements to ports of entry and prioritizing asylum access for asylum seekers who come to ports of entry. Among other proposals is the creation of “an ‘immigration FEMA’ equipped with the funding and authority to respond to large-scale migration events.”

• “Addressing Our Border Challenges Through a Framework That Is Firm, Fair and Free of Cruelty” (UnidosUS, August 21, 2024).
• Luis Montoya, “Unidosus Says Its First-Ever Border Plan Reflects Border Concerns of Latinos” (The Rio Grande Guardian, August 21, 2024).

At the Washington Examiner, Anna Giaritelli looked at the policies that have led to the current drop in migrant encounters at the border, and at the Biden administration’s use of alternative migration pathways that avoid the border, like humanitarian parole.

• Anna Giaritelli, “Biden Expands Border Workarounds Despite Major Drop in Illegal Crossings” (The Washington Examiner, August 22, 2024).

On the Right

• Gabe Kaminsky, “Kamala Harris Promoted Fundraisers by Abolish Ice Activists” (The Washington Examiner, August 21, 2024).

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Developments

Panama sent its first planeload of deportees from the Darién Gap under a new initiative supported by $6 million in U.S. government funding. About 30 Colombian adults, reportedly with criminal records, were repatriated aboard a plane to Medellín. One, according to the director of Panama’s migration agency, Roger Mojica, was an alleged sicario (hitman) for the Gulf Clan, the Colombian organized-crime group that controls territory at the entrance to the Darién route.

This official said that Panama is in talks with “Ecuador, India, and other nations” to coordinate deportation flights, but that there are no plans to return citizens of Venezuela—the majority of Darién migrants—due to a lack of diplomatic relations with Caracas. After passing through Darién reception sites, Venezuelans “are allowed to continue with the controlled flow,” said Mojica. (It is not clear, but this may mean that Colombia will not receive Venezuelans who have Temporary Protection Permit (PPT) documented status in Colombia.)

• “Primer Vuelo de Repatriacion de Migrantes Sale de Panama” (EFE, Efecto Cocuyo (Venezuela), August 20, 2024).
• “Brian A. Nichols @Whaasstsecty on Twitter” (Twitter, August 20, 2024).

The early July announcement of deportations and the new Panamanian government’s other efforts to limit Darién migration has caused a moderate pause in the flow of migration through Central America. 24,133 refugees and migrants transited Honduras in July, a 15 percent decrease from June, according to a monthly update from UNHCR.

Of 191 migrants interviewed by the UN agency in Honduras last month, 99 percent intended to stay in Honduras for less than a month (usually, less than a week). 68 percent cited “access to employment” as a reason for leaving, 32% cited a lack of documentation in the country where they had sought to settle, 39 percent cited “generalized violence and insecurity,” and 4 percent said they had been victims of violence, threats, or intimidation. (People leave for more than one reason, which is why the totals exceed 100 percent.)

• “Honduras- Mixed Movements Protection Monitoring- July 2024” (UN Refugee Agency, August 20, 2024).

The number of migrant remains Border Patrol has recovered in its El Paso Sector (New Mexico and the far western edge of Texas) stands at a record 164 so far in fiscal 2024 (since October 2023), Border Report reported. This is the fourth straight year in which the El Paso Sector has set a new record (39 in 2021, 71 in 2022, and 149 in 2023).

The death toll comes at a time when overall migration has dropped, but when new federal restrictions on asylum and a Texas state security buildup near downtown El Paso have incentivized more migration through nearby deserts. Deaths appear to be concentrated in areas that are a short drive from El Paso and other populations where water and first aid would be available.

• Julian Resendiz, “Migrant Death Toll Up to 164 in el Paso Region” (Border Report, August 20, 2024).

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data reported last Friday show that the agency seized 17,312 pounds of fentanyl during the first 10 months of fiscal 2024. Extended to 12 months, that would be 20,774 pounds: a 22 percent drop from 2023. This appears certain to be the first year in which border fentanyl seizures end up fewer than the previous year, since the drug began appearing in the mid-2010s.

• “Drug Seizure Statistics“ (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, August 16, 2024).

This Friday (August 23) is when asylum seekers in Mexico will begin being able to use the CBP One app from the southern states of Chiapas and Tabasco. Until now, the app, with which people can make appointments at U.S.-Mexico border ports of entry, has only functioned from Mexico City northward. Citizens of Mexico may use the app from anywhere in the country.

• “Cbp One™ Mobile Application – Recent Updates” (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, August 20, 2024).

Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens tweeted that the agency has apprehended more than 63,000 “Special Interest Migrants” so far in fiscal 2024, 85 percent of them in its San Diego (California) sector.

The term refers to a person who “potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests” based on their travel patterns. The most common “travel pattern” is a migrant’s country of origin. Though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not publish a list of its “special interest” countries, most appear to be majority Islamic nations—like Jordan, which is named in Chief Owens’s tweet.

• “Chief Jason Owens @Usbpchief on Twitter” (Twitter, August 20, 2024).

A report from the DHS Inspector-General found that 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children were transferred to the custody of the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement from 2019 to 2023, which then turned most of them over to relatives or sponsors. During those years, more than 32,000 unaccompanied children “failed to appear for their immigration court hearings.”

• Management Alert – Ice Cannot Monitor All Unaccompanied Migrant Children Released From Dhs and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Custody (Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, Monday, August 19, 2024).
• Timothy h.j. Nerozzi, “Ice Lost Track of Tens of Thousands of Migrant Kids, Dhs Inspector General Finds” (Fox News, August 20, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

“The contrast between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump illustrates what an important issue border security has become in this year’s presidential election, as Democrats and Republicans alike respond to polls showing that a growing number of voters want to stem new arrivals,” reads a mid-Democratic Convention news analysis from Andrea Castillo at the Los Angeles Times. It notes many Democrats’ pivot “toward tougher border messaging.”

Trump will visit the border in southeast Arizona on Thursday, the day Harris accepts the Democratic nomination.

• Andrea Castillo, “On Immigration, Democrats at Convention Shift Message to Combat Gop Attacks” (The Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2024).

At the Border Chronicle, Melissa del Bosque published a tribute to Eddie Canales of the South Texas Human Rights Center (1948-2024), who passed away on July 31. Canales maintained water stations and assisted identification efforts in Brooks County, Texas, just north of the Rio Grande Valley border region, an area where dozens if not hundreds of remains are recovered each year.

A proper legacy for Eddie, del Bosque wrote, would be the establishment of a center in Texas to identify migrants’ remains and provide closure to their loved ones: “one centralized facility where state-mandated fingerprinting and DNA sampling can be undertaken, and the cases can be managed and people ultimately identified.”

• Melissa del Bosque, “A Visionary in the Borderlands” (The Border Chronicle, August 20, 2024).

On the Right

• Rep. Mark Green (R-Tennessee), “No, Biden and Harris’ Border Crisis Is Not Over” (Real Clear Politics, August 20, 2024).
• Ryan King, “Sen. Blackburn Rolls Out Resolution Condemning ‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris” (The New York Post, August 20, 2024).
• Virginia Allen, “Allred vs. Cruz: 2 Opposing Visions for Texas’ Border With Mexico” (The Daily Signal, August 20, 2024).

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Developments

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released data late Friday about encounters with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border through July. It found that Border Patrol apprehended 56,408 undocumented migrants between the border’s ports of entry last month.

• That is a 32 percent drop from June, a 52 percent drop from May, and a 77 percent drop from the record-setting month of December 2023.
• It was the smallest monthly total of Border Patrol apprehensions since September 2020, when Donald Trump was president during the height of the pandemic, and fewer than July 2019 and the monthly average for all of 2019.
• Every nationality with over 100 apprehensions declined from June to July.
• All nine of Border Patrol’s U.S.-Mexico border sectors saw a drop from June to July, as they did from May to June. The San Diego (California) sector was number one in apprehensions, followed by Tucson (Arizona) and El Paso (Texas-New Mexico).
• Another 47,708 people came to border ports of entry, about 38,000 of them with appointments made using the CBP One app.

Combining migrants apprehended at and between ports of entry yielded a July total of 104,116 overall encounters with migrants in July, the fewest since February 2021. 32 percent were from Mexico, 12 percent from Venezuela, and 10 percent from Cuba. Of Venezuelan and Cuban citizens, 97 percent came to ports of entry, in most cases with CBP One appointments. Very few attempted to cross into Border Patrol custody, where the asylum rule and Mexico’s agreement to take those nationalities’ deportees would have made overland deportation very likely regardless of protection needs.

• “Since June 4, Encounters Between Ports of Entry Have Decreased by 55%” (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, August 16, 2024).
• Maria Sacchetti, Nick Miroff, “Illegal Border Crossings Fell in July to Lowest Level in Four Years” (The Washington Post, August 16, 2024).
• Isabela Dias, “Migrant Encounters at the Border Hit Lowest Number in Four Years” (Mother Jones, August 17, 2024).
• “Border Arrests Drop 33% to a 46-Month Low in July After Asylum Restrictions Take Hold” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 16, 2024).
• Sandra Sanchez, “‘Significant’ Drop in Migrant Encounters in July — Lowest Since 2020, Cbp Reports” (Border Report, August 16, 2024).
• Lucas Jackson, “Migrant Crossings at the Mexico Border Plummet: A Deep Dive Into the Decline” (La Voce di New York, August 17, 2024).

Much of the recent drop in apprehensions owes to the Biden administration’s early June rule (currently challenged in court) that almost completely cuts off asylum access for migrants apprehended between ports of entry. CBP reports deporting more than 92,000 people to over 130 countries since the rule went into effect.

As a result of the policy change, Border Patrol released just 12,106 people into the U.S. interior in July with notices to appear in immigration court, down from 27,768 in June and a record high of 191,782 last December.

Nearly half of those apprehended (27,313 of 56,408) were placed in expedited removal proceedings. Under the June rule, these proceedings required them to prove a higher-than-usual standard of “credible fear” in order to access the U.S. asylum system. The rule caused a sharp drop—from 55 percent to 24 percent—in the share of migrants expressing fear of return, Camilo Montoya-Gálvez of CBS News reported, citing an August 16 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) court filing.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Under Biden Border Move, Fewer Migrants Are Released Into the U.S. or Screened for Asylum” (CBS News, August 18, 2024).

Amid the reduced number of migrants being apprehended between ports of entry, Border Patrol most days is dropping off “single-digit” numbers of migrants at the El Paso area’s largest migrant shelter, USA Today reported. (Those released to the shelter after receiving CBP One appointments exceed 100 daily.)

• Lauren Villagran, “After Record-Breaking Years, Migrant Crossings Plunge at Us-Mexico Border” (USA Today, August 16, 2024).

Panama’s new president, José Raúl Mulino, said that U.S.-backed flights deporting migrants from the Darién Gap region are to commence on August 20 (Tuesday). “I sincerely regret it in my soul, because I know why many of them are fleeing,” Mulino told Univisión. “The political crisis in Venezuela is choking them”. Flights will go from Panama to Colombia.

• “El 20 de Agosto Inician los Vuelos de Retorno de Migrantes Que Crucen Darien, Segun Mulino” (EFE, Swissinfo.ch, August 17, 2024).

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will visit the border in Arizona on Thursday, the day that presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is to give her acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. He “is expected to engage with the border patrol union,” Bloomberg reported.

• Hadriana Lowenkron, Stephanie Lai, “Trump to Visit Border in Bid to Counter Harris Convention Speech” (Bloomberg, Yahoo!, August 18, 2024).

Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton (R), who has been investigating and intimidating border-area charities that shelter migrants released from CBP custody, is now going after the non-profit status FIEL Houston, an immigrant rights group. Paxton contends that FIEL, which criticizes the Texas state government’s hard-line migration policies, violates its tax-exempt status by being too vocal about legislation and electoral politics.

• Benjamin Wermund, “Ken Paxton Sues to Shut Down Houston Immigration Nonprofit for Posts Criticizing Trump, Abbott” (The Houston Chronicle, August 16, 2024).

In Tijuana, organized crime extortion is so pervasive that even small businesses like sidewalk vendors must pay $100 per week or be violently forced out of business. The fees have jumped in 2024, Border Report reported.

• Salvador Rivera, “Cartels ‘Squeeze’ Small Businesses, Sidewalk Vendors in Tijuana” (Border Report, August 16, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

The Los Angeles Times’s Andrea Castillo noted how down-ticket Democratic candidates for congressional seats are running ads featuring law enforcement personnel and attacking Republican opponents on the border issue, portraying them as obstructing legislative efforts to crack down on migration.

• Andrea Castillo, “In Political Ads, Democrats Go on Offense About Border Security” (The Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2024).

Republicans, meanwhile, spent over $247 million during the first half of 2024 on campaign ads with border and migration themes, nearly always as scare tactics. Of 745 ads surveyed, about 20 percent used out-of-context and outdated visuals, and a similar portion used derogatory terms like “illegals,” “aliens,” or even “murderers” or “rapists.” Ads were heavily focused in media markets far from the border, like Ohio, Indiana, and Montana.

• Azi Paybarah, Clara Ence Morse, Irfan Uraizee, James o’toole, Jonathan Baran, “Republicans Flood Tv With Misleading Ads About Immigration, Border” (The Washington Post, August 18, 2024).

The Washington Post looked at Kamala Harris’s record on the border and migration during her vice presidency, which consisted largely of an effort to address root causes of migration from Central America.

• Maria Sacchetti, Toluse Olorunnipa, “What Kamala Harris Did – and Didn’t Do – on Immigration and the Border” (The Washington Post, August 17, 2024).

Politico looked at Harris’s experience launching a task force to fight cross-border gang activity during her tenure as California’s attorney-general. In doing so, “she engaged the very people and law enforcement unions and others that had opposed her” campaign for the post, her former campaign manager said.

• “Kamala Harris Learned a Lesson About the Border Early in Her Career. It’s Paying Off Now.” (Politico, August 17, 2024).

The New York Times looked at how Donald Trump, if elected, might use the U.S. military on U.S. soil in ways without precedent in modern U.S. history, probably by invoking the Insurrection Act. They include using soldiers to carry out Trump’s promised mass deportation of undocumented migrants. The BBC looked at this, as well as what ICE’s cooperation with local law enforcement would look like in this “mass deportation” scenario.

• Charlie Savage, Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, “Deploying on U.S. Soil: How Trump Would Use Soldiers Against Riots, Crime and Migrants” (The New York Times, August 17, 2024).
• Bernd Debusmann Jr, Mike Wendling, “How Would Trump’s Promise of Mass Deportations of Migrants Work?” (BBC (UK), August 16, 2024).

An American Immigration Council fact sheet broke down the $409 billion that the U.S. government has spent on immigration enforcement since DHS began operations in 2003. It noted that, adjusted for inflation, Border Patrol’s budget has increased 765 percent since 1994.

• “The Cost of Immigration Enforcement and Border Security” (American Immigration Council, August 16, 2024).

Visiting small-town Ohio, the New York Times’s Jazmine Ulloa found widespread belief in the false conspiracy theory that Democrats are encouraging undocumented migration in order to enroll migrants as pro-Democratic voters.

• Jazmine Ulloa, “In Jd Vance’s Backyard, Conspiracy Theories About Migrants and Voting Abound” (The New York Times, August 18, 2024).

On the Right

• Kenzie Beach, “Arizona Sheriff Talks Declining Border Crossings; Doesn’t Credit Biden Admin’s Crackdown” (FOX 10 Phoenix, August 18, 2024).

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Developments

Border Patrol statistics obtained by USA Today’s Lauren Villagrán point to 61,325 apprehensions of migrants in July, including about 5,000 people taken into custody at ports of entry without CBP One appointments. This number, which aligns with early-August reports of about 57,000 Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry last month, is the fewest recorded at the U.S.-Mexico border since September 2020. CBP has not yet posted July migration data.

Villagrán visited the largest shelter for released migrants in the El Paso area, where most occupants are people who had CBP One appointments at ports of entry. Border Patrol drop-offs of migrants who crossed the border without inspection—and are mostly banned from seeking asylum under a June 2024 Biden administration rule—are down to “single digits” per day.

• Lauren Villagran, “After Record-Breaking Years, Migrant Crossings Plunge at Us-Mexico Border” (USA Today, August 16, 2024).

Villagrán, Anna Giaritelli of the Washington Examiner, and Didi Martinez and Laura Strickler of NBC News reported that the drop in migration has nearly stalled Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) program of busing released migrants, without advance coordination, to U.S. cities governed by Democratic mayors.

• Anna Giaritelli, “Texas Stops Busing Migrants to Chicago Months Before Democratic Convention” (The Washington Examiner, August 15, 2024).
• Didi Martinez, Laura Strickler, “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Vows to Keep Busing Migrants North. One Problem: Not Enough Migrants.” (NBC News, August 14, 2024).

Border Report’s Sandra Sanchez covered a training in Eagle Pass of volunteers helping to identify deceased migrants. A mobile morgue run by the sheriff’s department in Maverick County, which includes Eagle Pass, currently holds over 40 unidentified remains; the county lacks a medical examiner. Some remains have been in the morgue since 2020.

• Sandra Sanchez, “Volunteers Learn to Fingerprint, Id Deceased Migrants” (Border Report, August 15, 2024).

President Biden spoke with Panama’s new president, José Raúl Mulino, on August 14. They “discussed joint efforts to address the challenges stemming from irregular migration through Panama, including the regularization of migrant populations and increased humane enforcement efforts.”

• “Readout of President Biden’s Call With President Jose Raul Mulino of Panama” (The White House, August 14, 2024).

A host of senior Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials will be speaking at a “Border Technology Summit” in San Diego on September 24-25. The event encourages networking between border law enforcement management and private corporations seeking to sell technology and services. Admission for government and military employees is $49; the fee for foreign governments, academics, and non-profits is $1,195 (currently discounted to $995).

• “Empowering Border Security Through Technology, Innovation, and Collaboration” (Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, August 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

At the Border Chronicle, Todd Miller took stock of the Kamala Harris campaign’s recent tough talk about border security and migration, including pledges to maintain asylum curbs and hire more Border Patrol agents.

• Todd Miller, “The Border Cold War: Election Tension and the Bipartisan Consensus” (The Border Chronicle, August 15, 2024).

The BBC looked at Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportation of migrants from the United States, and at his running mate J.D. Vance’s suggestion, “Let’s start with one million.” The analysis pointed to many potential obstacles, from law to logistics to public outrage.

• Bernd Debusmann Jr, Mike Wendling, “How Would Trump’s Promise of Mass Deportations of Migrants Work?” (BBC (UK), August 16, 2024).

The Associated Press reported from Peru, Chile, and Colombia about those countries’ expectation of a new wave of Venezuelan migration following the July 28 presidential elections’ fraudulent and repressive result. The Miami Herald reported on an August 8-11 Meganálisis poll of 1,007 Venezuelans, which found more than 40 percent are considering fleeing. (It also found that 93 percent of Venezuelans do not believe that Nicolás Maduro won the election.)

• Astrid Suarez, Franklin Briceno, Nayara Batschke, “As Fallout Surges From Venezuela’s Election Crisis, the Region Fears Another Mass Exodus” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 15, 2024).
• Antonio MarÍa Delgado, Syra Ortiz Blanes, “A Hundred Thousand Venezuelans Are Considering Leaving the Country Right Now, Poll Says” (The Miami Herald, August 15, 2024).

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Developments

Border Report’s Salvador Rivera spoke to a Haitian woman who waited eight months, much of them in Tijuana, to obtain a CBP One appointment to seek asylum at the San Ysidro port of entry south of San Diego.

• Salvador Rivera, “Cbp One Appointments ‘Difficult to Get,’ Migrant Who Waited 8 Months Says” (Border Report, August 14, 2024).

MIT Technology Review covered Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to use facial recognition technology on migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border to improve these systems’ accuracy. The initiative raises ethical and privacy concerns, especially with regard to transparency—the plans are vague—and children’s ability to give informed consent. A staffer for Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) called DHS’s plan “another stride toward a surveillance state [that] should be a concern to everyone who values privacy.”

• Eileen Guo, “Dhs Plans to Collect Biometric Data From Migrant Children “Down to the Infant”” (MIT Technology Review, August 14, 2024).

National Guard troops acting on the orders of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) have begun laying down additional layers of razor wire along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass and in El Paso. The wire in El Paso will be the third layer of state-government barrier in front of the border wall; across the border in Ciudad Juárez, the Hope Border Institute’s Clínica Hope has already treated many people, including children, with cuts and lacerations from Texas’s wire.

• Sandra Sanchez, “Texas Expands Razor Wire Along River Banks in Eagle Pass and el Paso” (Border Report, August 14, 2024).
• Jose Estrada, “Fotos: Texas Coloca Tercera Linea de Alambre de Navajas en el Bordo Fronterizo” (Norte (Ciudad Juarez Mexico), August 14, 2024).

Arizona’s Supreme Court will allow the state’s voters in November to decide on a proposal—similar to Texas’s S.B. 4 law, which is currently on hold pending legal challenges—making it a state crime to cross the border without inspection and empowering local police to arrest people suspected of doing so.

• Jim Small, “Az Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Block ‘Secure Border’ Measure From Going to the Ballot” (Arizona Mirror, The Tucson Sentinel (Tucson Arizona), August 14, 2024).
• Jacques Billeaud, “Proposal to Allow Local Police to Make Arrests Near Arizona Border With Mexico Will Appear on Ballot” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 14, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

The current decline in migration at the U.S.-Mexico border will be short-lived as migrants’ desperation remains unchanged, argues a USA Today column from Yael Schacher and Rachel Schmidtke of Refugees International. A longer-term policy would adopt “new approaches to adjudicating asylum claims and to reception of asylum seekers at the border and in destination cities,” while strengthening migration pathways like Safe Mobility Offices.

• Rachel Schmidtke, Yael Schacher, “‘I Can’t Go Back. The Us Is My Only Option’: Why Biden’s Border Policy Isn’t Working” (Refugees International, USA Today, August 15, 2024).

A Guardian column by High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi repeated some of these themes, noting that deterrence-based policies ultimately fail. A better response, Grandi argued, lies in building up asylum systems and creating “one-stop shops” that provide information and humanitarian assistance to better channel people on the move.

• Filippo Grandi, “Populist Politicians Will Never ‘Control’ Immigration. Here Are the Humane Alternatives” (The Guardian (Uk), August 14, 2024).

Washington Post data columnist Philip Bump noted that at least for now, migration at the border—along with crime and inflation—has declined in recent months, taking key lines of attack away from the Trump campaign.

• Philip Bump, “The Other Big Shift in the Presidential Race” (The Washington Post, August 14, 2024).

An NPR analysis of the Trump campaign’s “mass deportation” plans pointed to logistical and legal obstacles they would face, though it only briefly discussed Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s intention to elide those obstacles using the U.S. military, invoking emergency powers.

• Joel Rose, Sergio Martinez-Beltran, “Trump Touts Historic Deportation Plans, but His Own Record Reveals Big Obstacles” (National Public Radio, August 14, 2024).

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Developments

The New York Times reported on a $45 million settlement that CBP has reached with about 1,000 female employees of its Office of Field Operations, who sued the agency for having “instilled a culture of shame and perpetuated a fear of retaliation” against employees who become pregnant. CBP must now draft a new policy for pregnant employees and train managers and supervisors.

The story conveyed recent statistics about the CBP workforce’s gender makeup: women are about 24 percent of employees, less than the FBI’s 30 percent. (Meanwhile, CBP’s Border Patrol component struggles to exceed 5 percent.) CBP hopes that its recruitment classes will be made up of 30 percent women by 2030, but new hires are currently 20 percent women.

• Eileen Sullivan, “Transfers and Pay Cuts: Pregnant Officers Accuse Border Agency of Discrimination” (The New York Times, August 13, 2024).

Though Panama’s new government has yet to update official statistics about Darién Gap migration beyond May, a UNHCR update revealed that 31,049 people migrated through the treacherous jungle region in June. Of that total, 23,509 (76%) were citizens of Venezuela. That pace of roughly 1,000 migrants per day has been steady since January, but is a drop from well over 2,000 per day in August and September of 2023. (Preliminary data from July, gleaned from Panamanian government press releases, points to a drop in the flow to just over 700 per day.)

• “Darien Panama: Mixed Movements Protection Monitoring July 2024” (UN Refugee Agency, August 13, 2024).

Migrant shelters in Tijuana have been seeing more arrivals of unaccompanied minors, municipal migration official Enrique Lucero told Border Report. Often, Lucero said, parents are “sending their children to the border ahead of themselves, hoping to reunite at some point in the future.” He also cited “a belief that unaccompanied minors are accepted into the United States immediately and given asylum.”

• Salvador Rivera, “More Unaccompanied Children Showing Up at Tijuana Shelters” (Border Report, August 13, 2024).

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement defending the work of Catholic migrant shelters, like Annunciation House in El Paso and Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, being targeted by Texas’ state attorney general for allegations of facilitating illegal migration and smuggling. It reads, “Anti-Catholic bias, political motivations, and misinformation have long undergirded these claims. Assisting newcomers, however, is one of the Corporal Works of Mercy and integral to Catholic identity.”

• Hannah Hiester, “Usccb Responds to Claims That Catholic Nonprofits on Border Support Illegal Immigrants” (catholicvote.org, August 13, 2024).

The conservative New York Post lamented that DHS’s Family Expedited Removal (FERM) Program—a Biden administration initiative that puts some family asylum seekers through express adjudication processes, raising due process concerns—has deported just 2,600 of 24,000 migrants enrolled since May 2023.

• Jennie Taer, “Biden Program Meant to Remove Illegal Migrant Families Has Instead Allowed 90% to Stay in Us” (The New York Post, August 13, 2024).

Senior Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services asking for the number of “potentially dangerous adults in the United States” who have applied with the Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement to take custody of unaccompanied children who crossed the border.

• Anna Giaritelli, “Hhs Under Gop Fire for Putting Migrant Children ‘in Danger’” (The Washington Examiner, August 13, 2024).

In Kinney County, which occupies a small piece of the border between Del Rio and Eagle Pass in mid-Texas, Sheriff Brad Coe—a staunch supporter of Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) Operation Lone Star—is now training deputies in the use of less-lethal weapons like pepper ball and tear gas launchers in order to “manage crowds” of migrants, NewsNation reported.

• Ali Bradley, “Border Sheriffs Given New Weapons to Disperse Migrant Crowds” (NewsNation, August 13, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Three major media outlets published analyses of Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’s role in the Biden administration’s border and migration policies. They generally conclude that Harris was in no way the administration’s so-called “Border Czar,” and that she had a mixed record leading its strategy for addressing root causes of migration from Central America.

Harris’s Central America role “was a decidedly long-term—and limited—approach to a humanitarian crisis, and it has allowed Republicans to tie her to the broader fight over the border,” the Associated Press noted.

• Chris Megerian, Dan Merica, Nicholas Riccardi, “Presented With Rise in Border Crossings, Harris Chose a Long-Term Approach to the Problem” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 14, 2024).

Former Biden administration National Security Council official Katie Tobin told the BBC that Harris “deserves credit for ‘a good news story’ in Central America”: notable drops in migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras since 2021.

• Will Grant, “Trump Attacks Harris Over Us Border Policing – Was It Her Job?” (BBC (UK), August 13, 2024).

“The Biden-Harris administration’s record on border enforcement is certainly mixed, but that should not distract from the progress made through Harris’ efforts to address the causes of immigration,” Wayne Cornelius of U.C. San Diego wrote at the Los Angeles Times.

• Wayne A. Cornelius, “Trump and Other Republicans Call Kamala Harris a Failed ‘Border Czar.’ Here’s the Truth” (UC San Diego, The Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2024).

In Arizona, Democratic Senate candidate Rubén Gallego, a House member with a record of progressive policy views, is now proposing “increased funding for border patrol, border technology, and more border agents while also ‘advocating for sane, comprehensive immigration reforms, things that would take care of our Dreamers,’” NBC News reported. Gallego leads Republican opponent Kari Lake in polls for the vote to replace retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I).

• Alex Tabet, “Democrat Ruben Gallego Leans Into Border Security in Battleground Senate Race” (NBC News, August 13, 2024).

On the Right

• Bethany Blankley, “Polls: Majority of Americans Want Troops Sent to Border, Oppose Illegal Immigration” (The Center Square, August 13, 2024).
• Jennie Taer, “Sheriffs Slam Biden-Harris Admin Over Failed Border Policies That Let in Tren de Aragua After Group Gave ‘Green Light’ to Shoot Cops” (The New York Post, August 13, 2024).

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Developments

At campaign rallies in Arizona and Nevada, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris again sought to “flip the script” on the U.S.-Mexico border issue, using it as a line of attack on Republican nominee Donald Trump. Harris called for “comprehensive reform that includes, yes, strong border security and an earned pathway to citizenship.”

Though reforms like a pathway to citizenship have stalled in the Senate for lack of 60 votes to break a filibuster, Harris is promising tougher border measures that would only require appropriations (50 votes), like hiring more Border Patrol agents.

• Dylan Wells, “Harris Goes on Offense Over the Border in Attempt to Undercut Trump” (The Washington Post, August 10, 2024).
• Darlene Superville, Gabriel Sandoval, Nicholas Riccardi, Seung Min Kim, “Kamala Harris Makes an Immigration Pitch in Arizona as She Fights to Gain Ground in the Sun Belt” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 9, 2024).

At Salon, Adriel Orozco of the Migration Policy Institute explained why attacks on Harris’s vice-presidential role addressing causes of migration in Central America, misconstruing her as a “Border Czar,” are inaccurate.

• Nandika Chatterjee, “The Gop’s “Border Czar” Attack on Kamala Harris Misstates Her Role on Immigration, Expert Says” (Salon, August 9, 2024).

Anticipating “a potential increase in migration flows” through treacherous deserts where hundreds of migrants die each year, Doctors Without Borders is resuming a medical mission along the border in Arizona.

• “Supporting Local Groups Helping People on the Move at the Us-Mexico Border” (Medicos Sin Fronteras, August 9, 2024).

In a Guardian photo essay from Colombia’s department of Norte de Santander, near the Venezuela border, Euan Wallace reported that migrants and shelters are bracing for a “new spike in migration” from Venezuela following authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro’s widely disputed claim to have won July 28 elections.

• Euan Wallace, “‘Whose Fault Is It? The Dictator’: The Venezuelan Refugees on a Knife-Edge at the Colombian Border – Photo Essay” (The Guardian (Uk), August 9, 2024).

The DHS Inspector General published a report on January 2024 unannounced inspections of CBP facilities in Border Patrol’s mid-Texas Del Rio Sector. It found that agents were holding 23 percent to 31 percent of detainees longer than the 72-hour standard due to limited ICE bed space and prioritization of family units over single adults. All inspected facilities had lower-than-required medical staffing levels, and agents were not consistently logging meals and welfare checks.

Capacity was probably less of an issue: January 2024 was a less-busy month for Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, with 16,710 migrant apprehensions, down sharply from 71,050 in December 2023.

• Results of January 2024 Unannounced Inspections of Cbp Holding Facilities in the del Rio Area (Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, Thursday, August 8, 2024).

Mexico’s army destroyed 1,347 weapons confiscated in Tijuana. “Most” entered the border city from the United States, which has far more permissive gun ownership laws, the head of the city’s public safety office told Border Report.

• Salvador Rivera, “Mexican Army Destroys 1,347 Firearms in Tijuana; Most Had Us Origins, Officials Say” (Border Report, August 9, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

At the New York Times, Lulu García-Navarro profiled Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), who led Republican efforts to negotiate border reform legislation with the Senate’s Democratic majority in late 2023 and early 2024. The “border deal” bill that negotiators came up with failed in early February amid vocal opposition from Donald Trump. Lankford said he resisted chief Democratic negotiator Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-Connecticut) demand that the bill include a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers” because Republicans would have viewed it as a “bill-killer.”

• Lulu Garcia-Navarro, “The Man Who Tried to Solve Immigration for the g.o.p.” (The New York Times, August 10, 2024).

The New York Times published a full-length obituary of Eddie Canales (1948-2024), the co-founder and director of the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, Texas, who sought to prevent migrant deaths by leaving water stations on ranchland in Brooks County, north of the Rio Grande Valley border region.

• Adam Nossiter, “Eddie Canales, 76, Dies; Gave Migrants Water, and Dignity” (The New York Times, August 10, 2024).

The Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh and David Bier penned a column at the libertarian publication Reason warning that a temporary suspension of the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela could lead to more illegal entries of migrants from those countries at the U.S.-Mexico border. The authors call into question the Department of Homeland Security’s justification for suspending the parole program: suspicions of fraud in sponsorship applications. Of irregularities in applications, they contend, much are the result of human error in the filling out of online forms, not malice.

• Alex Nowrasteh, David Bier, “Biden’s Dhs Halting Migrant Program Raises Border Security Concerns” (Cato Institute, Reason, August 9, 2024).

The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington looked at reasons why Tejano voters in south Texas’s Rio Grande Valley borderlands are increasingly voting Republican. They include social conservatism and support for law enforcement and fossil fuels, along with support for stricter policies toward newly arriving migrants.

• Ed Pilkington, “Latinos in Once True-Blue Texas Border Zone Are Getting on the Trump Train” (The Guardian (Uk), August 10, 2024).

The Markup published an interview with Francisco Lara-García, a sociologist at Hofstra University who has studied border surveillance technology and its impact on civil liberties and everyday life in the borderlands. “Personally, the thing that is most unsettling is: the ways that you don’t know that you’re being surveilled.”

• Monique O. Madan, “The ‘Unsettling,’ Nearly Normalized Surveillance Tech Monitoring the U.S.-Mexico Border” (The Markup, August 10, 2024).

In a visit to El Paso, EFE found “barbed wire fences over the Rio Grande (the natural divide with Mexico), prison-style watchtowers, helicopters, motion detectors and the omnipresence of the Border Patrol.”

• “Politica Migratoria de Texas Obedece a Ano Electoral Segun Expertos” (EFE, Milenio (Mexico), August 11, 2024).

On the Right

• Denisse Gomez, Jorge Ventura, “Fact-Checking Kamala Harris’ Border Claims in New Ad” (NewsNation, August 11, 2024).
• “Editorial: Cartel Drones Take Air Control of Us Border as Kamala Harris Cackles and Joe Biden Dodders” (The New York Post, August 11, 2024).
• Therese Boudreaux, “Steil: Whitewater a ‘Case Study’ on Local Impacts of Border Crisis” (The Center Square, August 9, 2024).

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Developments

CBP has not yet published final numbers showing July’s sharp drop in migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border, a result of a Mexican government crackdown on in-transit migration and the Biden administration’s June 5 rule prohibiting most asylum access between border ports of entry. Some press coverage in the past 24 hours focuses on what the drop in migration looks like at the border right now.

At NBC News, Didi Martínez and Laura Strickler reported that populations have dropped by 60 percent or more at migrant shelters in border cities and in U.S. interior cities. The number of people waiting in makeshift encampments in Mexican border cities has also plummeted; this is in part because the Mexican government is systematically busing migrants to the country’s south, and in part because people using the CBP One app from Mexican territory to schedule port-of-entry appointments find that they can await their dates from elsewhere in Mexico.

• Didi Martinez, Laura Strickler, “‘Drastically Less’: The Number of Migrants in Border Towns and Some Big U.S. Cities Has Plunged” (NBC News, August 9, 2024).

At the Guardian, Justo Robles found that people are being sent back across the border into danger after fleeing threats. The article cites an August 7 report from six national and border-region organizations documenting U.S. border agents’ ignoring migrants’ claims of fear of return, and conveys concerns that the June asylum ban will lead more people to risk death migrating through borderland deserts.

A principal author of the August 7 report, Christina Asencio of Human Rights First, discussed its findings with Arizona Public Radio.

• Justo Robles, “Migrant Crossings Have Plunged After Biden’s Asylum Ban. But Top Democrats Are Asking: At What Price?” (The Guardian (Uk), August 9, 2024).
• Alisa Reznick, “Report: Border Officers in Arizona Are Turning Away Asylum Seekers Despite U.S. Law” (KJZZ Arizona, August 8, 2024).

At the Washington Examiner, Anna Giaritelli reported that migrant apprehensions are dropping close to the 1,500-per-day average threshold that, if maintained for 3 weeks, would trigger a suspension of the June 5 asylum ban. The ban would go back in effect if the average climbs back above 2,500 per day; July’s average was under 1,850 per day.

• Anna Giaritelli, “Biden Could Lift Border Executive Action That Helped Lower Migrant Crossings” (The Washington Examiner, August 9, 2024).

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an executive order requiring the state’s hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status. The governor’s goal appears to be to collect data about the cost of providing health care to undocumented people, which the state government would then cite in litigation against the Biden administration’s border and migration policies. Advocates fear that the measure will discourage people who need urgent medical care from seeking it.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Texas Gov. Abbott Instructs Hospitals to Collect Data on Patients’ Immigration Status” (CBS News, August 8, 2024).
• Sandra Sanchez, “Abbott Orders Hospitals to Compile Patients’ Immigration Status” (Border Report, August 8, 2024).

San Diego-area human rights defense groups filed a complaint with DHS about a pattern of sexual abuse and neglect at ICE’s Otay Mesa immigrant detention facility, which is run by private contractor CoreCivic.

• Billal Rahman, “Us-Mexico Border Migrants Claim Sexual Assault by Detention Center Staff” (Newsweek, August 8, 2024).

In comments to reporters, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado warned that the Maduro regime’s theft of July 28 elections and subsequent repression will trigger sharply increased migration from a country that has already seen a quarter of its population flee. “If Maduro chooses to cling to power by force, we can only expect a migratory wave like we have never seen: three, four, five million Venezuelans in a very short time.”

• “Maria Corina Machado Advierte de Nueva Ola Migratoria en Venezuela Si Nicolas Maduro se Aferra al Cargo” (EFE, El Universo (Guayaquil Ecuador), August 8, 2024).

Of 2,025 “caravan” participants who have been walking from Mexico’s southern border since mid-July and are now camped in the southern state of Oaxaca, over a quarter (552) are unaccompanied minors, Oaxaca state officials told Milenio.

• Oscar Rodriguez, “Identifican a Mas de 500 Menores Migrantes en Caravana de Oaxaca” (Milenio (Mexico), August 8, 2024).

Citing an internal bulletin from Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector, the New York Post reported that two Mexican criminal groups, Los Salazar and Los Pelones, are attacking each other with drones armed with explosives in northern Sonora state, not far from the Arizona border.

• Jennie Taer, Josh Christenson, “Hundreds of Suspected Cartel Drones — Some Now With Explosives — Are Flying Near the Southern Border” (The New York Post, August 8, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Of people arrested for fentanyl possession at U.S.-Mexico border ports of entry between 2019 and 2024, 80.2 percent (7,598 of 9,473) were U.S. citizens, according to Freedom of Information Act data obtained by David Bier of the Cato Institute. (Similarly, at a July 2023 House hearing, a CBP official noted that U.S. citizens made up 73.1 percent of fentanyl arrests during the first 8 months of fiscal 2023, with the remainder Mexican citizens who mostly had permission to cross the border.)

The data punctures the evidence-free argument, promoted by many U.S. politicians, that migration and fentanyl smuggling are tied. Bier’s analysis also presents reasons to doubt that new detection technologies at ports of entry would solve the United States’ fentanyl challenge.

• David J. Bier, “Us Citizens Were 80.2 Percent of Crossers With Fentanyl at Ports of Entry From 2019 to 2024” (The Cato Institute, August 8, 2024).

Newsweek covered an August 6 Border Network for Human Rights virtual event (follow the link to “5th Report from the Border” here) at which Texas-area human rights denounced troubling recent cases of Texas police and guardsmen abusing migrants and improperly using force along the borderline. (WOLA’s Adam Isacson, discussing federal forces’ behavior and rising migrant deaths, was among this event’s speakers.)

• Dan Gooding, “Human Rights Groups Allege Abuse Against Immigrants by Texas Border Force” (Newsweek, August 8, 2024).

On the Right

• Jason Hopkins, “‘Absolutely Not’: Retired Border Patrol Chief Says Kamala Harris Never Once Spoke With Him About Border Crisis” (Daily Caller, August 8, 2024).
• Samantha-Jo Roth, “Trump-Aligned Group Bashes Harris Over the Border in Ad Blitz Across Battleground States” (The Washington Examiner, August 8, 2024).

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Developments

Panama’s migration authority deported, on a commercial flight, 28 Colombian citizens detained in the Darién Gap region. Eleven of them, the agency said, had criminal records in Colombia. The operation took place “in support of the U.S.-Panama memorandum of understanding,” read a statement, referring to the U.S. government’s recent commitment to help fund Panama’s increased deportations of migrants from the Darién.

• “Migracion Panama @Migracionpanama on Twitter” (Twitter, August 7, 2024).

The commander of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Laura Richardson, was in Panama for a two-day visit. Gen. Richardson met with Panama’s new president, José Raúl Mulino, “to discuss bilateral security cooperation and strategies to contain the unprecedented irregular migration through the Darién jungle.”

• “Jefa del Comando Sur de Eeuu Analiza Crisis de Venezuela Con el Presidente de Panama” (RFI / AFP, Tal Cual (Venezuela), August 7, 2024).

Panama’s border force reported arresting 15 people who allegedly helped smuggle Chinese migrants through the Darién Gap through a so-called “VIP route” that is more costly but involves less walking through the jungle (about two days).

• “Panama Capturo a Organizacion Que Traficaba Migrantes Chinos por la Selva del Darien” (Agence France Presse, El Universo (Guayaquil Ecuador), August 7, 2024).
• “Panama Arrests 15 People for Smuggling Chinese Migrants Through the Darien Gap” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 7, 2024).

Due to the Biden administration’s new asylum restrictions and Mexico’s crackdown on migrants in transit, Tijuana’s migrant shelters are well below capacity, municipal migration official Enrique Lucero told Border Report.

• Salvador Rivera, “Migrant Shelters in Tijuana Have Lots of Space Available” (Border Report, August 7, 2024).

Police in Mexico’s border state of Chihuahua encountered 10 migrants from Sudan and Morocco who had just been released by their criminal kidnappers after ransom was paid. They said they endured torture, and were taken to a shelter.

• Julian Resendiz, “Police Rescue Victims After 911 Call Alerting to Group Walking About ‘Erratically and in Deplorable Conditions’ Along a Highway” (Border Report, August 7, 2024).

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) installed a third layer of concertina wire barrier along the Rio Grande in El Paso, EFE reported. Pastor Francisco González of the Somos Uno por Juárez Shelter Network said that the additional barrier, by making crossing more complicated, “opens the door for the people who are dedicated to human trafficking, the so-called coyotes, to make a killing.”

• “Extienden Alambre de Puas por la Frontera Entre Estados Unidos y Mexico” (EFE, Milenio (Mexico), August 7, 2024).

As Venezuela’s regime deepens a crackdown following false claims of victory in July 28 elections, a leader of the country’s political opposition told the Miami Herald that a new wave of migrants fleeing the country is imminent.

• Antonio MarÍa Delgado, “Crisis About to Trigger Regional Flood of Refugees Out of Venezuela, Opposition Says” (The Miami Herald, August 8, 2024).

A “caravan” that departed Mexico’s southern border about three weeks ago is now in Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca. Exhausted, many are receiving medical attention in the town of San Pedro Tapanatepec.

• Ramon Bragana, “Migrantes De “Caravana de Jesucristo” Reciben Atencion Medica Oaxaca” (Milenio (Mexico), August 7, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Six national and border-region organizations released a new report on the human rights impact of the Biden administration’s June 5 rule restricting access to asylum at the border. The main finding is that U.S. border agents are frequently deporting people who express fear of return, even though the rule states that they are still entitled to credible fear interviews (though they now have to prove a much higher standard of fear).

Often, the report states, agents who refuse to honor fear claims are doing so with false and insulting statements. Examples include “there is no asylum anymore; we don’t care”; “there is no asylum and whatever happened to you is not our problem”; or “what if I went to your house and entered without permission? You’re entering my country without permission.”

• “‘Don’t Tell Me About Your Fear’” (Hope Border Institute, Human Rights First, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Kino Border Initiative, Raices, Refugees International, Human Rights First, August 7, 2024).

A New Yorker feature by Jack Herrera profiled Father Brian Strassburger, a Jesuit priest dedicated to assisting migrants in the violence-plagued border city of Reynosa, Mexico, across from McAllen. The area has seen a spike in already-high levels of migrant kidnappings since mid-2023. “As the country turns against migrants, Strassburger’s work has become more fraught.”

• Jack Herrera, “The Betrayal of American Border Policy” (The New Yorker, August 8, 2024).

The University of New Mexico radio station interviewed Erin Siegal McIntyre, author of an August 7 Mother Jones investigation of sexual violence within Border Patrol, including a 2019 rape at the agency’s academy in Artesia, New Mexico. (The investigation was part of a package of reported pieces about the state of Border Patrol that Mother Jones ran on August 7.)

McIntyre said she obtained a CBP dataset of 186 sexual misconduct allegations over 20 years, but it has glaring omissions, including high profile cases: “So it’s clear you can’t trust the government’s numbers.”

• Alice Fordham, “Report Raises Questions of Misconduct at New Mexico’s Border Patrol Academy” (KUNM (University of New Mexico), August 7, 2024).

Reuters reported on the Harris campaign’s “tough talk” on border security, as they launch attacks on Donald Trump for his February push to kill a “border deal” bill that failed in the Senate. That bill included a few immigration reform priorities, but also included Republican-friendly provisions like blocking asylum access at busy times (something President Biden later did by executive order in early June) and increasing ICE detention capacity by about 47 percent.

“Harris has made the border security bill a centerpiece of her platform,” Reuters noted, “and a digital campaign ad has cast the election as a choice between ‘the one who will fix our broken immigration system. And the one who’s trying to stop her.’”

• Kristina Cooke, Ted Hesson, Trevor Hunnicutt, “Kamala Harris Talks Tough on Border Security to Take on Donald Trump” (Reuters, Reuters, August 7, 2024).
• Rafael Carranza, “Tim Walz Pushed for Progressive Immigration Policies as Gov; Supports Biden Border Moves” (The Arizona Republic, August 7, 2024).

On the Right

• Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), “Congressman Matt Gaetz Demands Dhs Turn Over All Correspondence Referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as ‘Border Czar’” (U.S. House of Representatives, August 7, 2024).
• Ryan King, “Matt Gaetz Presses Dhs for Docs About ‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris” (The New York Post, August 7, 2024).

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Developments

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris presented her chosen running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. The vice-presidential nominee, who served in the House of Representatives for 12 years, does not have a lengthy record on border and migration issues, but he has rarely diverged from standard liberal Democratic positions.

• In 2018, at the lowest point of the Trump administration’s family separations policy, he was one of 195 House members who co-sponsored the “Keep Families Together Act.”
• In 2015 Walz supported legislation backing stricter screening of refugees, but the New York Times reported that he has since changed this position.
• In 2008, following a visit to El Paso, he called “on Congress to increase funding for more Border Patrol agents, security cameras, technology and K-9 training,” MPR News reported at the time; these remain common positions among many Democratic legislators.
• Twitter user Tim Young (@Young25Tim) posted screenshots of tweets from Walz, going back to 2018, criticizing Trump’s family separation policy, opposing Trump’s use of Defense Department funds to build border wall, endorsing a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers,” and affirming that “Minnesota is stronger because of our immigrant communities.”

Republican opponents are playing up comments Walz made in a late July CNN interview, in which he was facetiously making a point about the futility of border wall construction: “I always say, let me know how high it is. If it’s 25 feet, then I’ll invest in the 30 foot ladder factory. That’s not how you stop this.”

In the same interview Walz endorsed the February 2024 “border deal” bill that Donald Trump successfully urged Senate Republicans to kill. That bill included a few immigration reform priorities but also would have blocked asylum access at busy times (something President Biden later did by executive order in early June) and increased ICE detention capacity by about 47 percent.

• Nur Ibrahim, “Did Tim Walz Say He’d Invest in ‘Ladder Factory’ to Help Migrants Over Border Wall?” (Snopes, August 6, 2024).
• Steven Nelson, “Tim Walz Previews Trump Border Wall Attack: ‘I’ll Invest in the 30-Foot-Ladder Factory’” (The New York Post, August 6, 2024).

CBP posted three notices on August 6 about deaths involving agency personnel:

• A January 24 pursuit in New Mexico, near El Paso, that ended in a rollover crash that killed a woman from Guatemala.
• The death of a newborn baby following delivery by caesarean section, after the February 25 apprehension of an eight-months pregnant woman from Angola near Lukeville, Arizona. The mother was taken to a hospital, where doctors “detected a defect in the fetus’ heartbeat.”
• A March 6 pursuit in Lukeville, Arizona during which two passengers exited a vehicle moving at about 45 miles per hour. A man from Mexico died of his injuries.

• “Woman Declared Deceased Following a Single Vehicle Rollover Accident” (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, August 6, 2024).
• “Newborn dies at Arizona hospital after mother transported for care” (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, August 6, 2024).
• “Man Dies After Exiting From a Moving Vehicle in an Apparent Human Smuggling Incident” (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, August 6, 2024).

The chief of Border Patrol’s Del Rio, Texas sector reposted a very political Elon Musk tweet to the sector’s official Twitter feed. The message, which has nothing to do with border security, accuses Google of stifling news of Donald Trump’s July assassination attempt in its search results, and favoring Democrats against Trump, citing 2020 campaign donations. Chief Patrol Agent Robert Danley’s retweet, which remained atop the Del Rio Sector feed as of 8:00 Eastern on August 7, appears to run afoul of the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive-branch civil servants from engaging in political activity.

• “Adam Isacson on Twitter” (Twitter, August 7, 2024).

At the Border Chronicle, Melissa del Bosque revealed that CBP is keeping asylum seekers’ genetic profiles in “a massive criminal investigations database” without their knowledge, even when those asylum seekers are deported or expelled from the border. “The program disproportionately targets people of color,” said Stevie Glaberson of the Center on Privacy and Technology, which has investigated the program.

• Melissa del Bosque, “Many Asylum Seekers Are Being Expelled, but Not Before Giving Up Their Dna” (The Border Chronicle, August 6, 2024).

InsightCrime noted that CBP’s largest-ever fentanyl seizure, 453 kilograms (999 pounds) from a U.S. citizen crossing the Lukeville, Arizona port of entry on July 1, happened despite the Sinaloa Cartel’s widely cited order to stop producing the drug in Mexico’s Sinaloa state. “The size of this seizure,” equivalent to 7 percent of CBP’s entire border-wide fentanyl haul during the first 9 months of fiscal 2024, “suggests that fentanyl continues to be produced in other areas of Mexico,” like the border states of Baja California and Sonora, reported InsightCrime’s Henry Shuldiner.

• Henry Shuldiner, “Us Customs Makes Historic Fentanyl Seizure” (InsightCrime, August 6, 2024).

A study in the journal Trauma Surgery and Acute Care “identified 597 patients injured while crossing the US-Mexico border wall representing 38 different countries” in 2021 and 2022. Their mean age was 32 and 75 percent were male. Two-thirds were Mexican, followed by citizens of Peru, India, El Salvador, Cuba, and Jamaica. The study concludes: “The increased volume of trauma associated with the US-Mexico border wall is a humanitarian and health crisis.”

• Allison e Berndtson, Gabriella Waters, Jarrett Santorelli, Jay Doucet, Laura Adams, Laura Haines, Sarah Lagan, Todd W Costantini, “From Across the Globe – Traumatic Injuries Are an International Concern at the Us-Mexico Border Wall” (Trauma Surgery & Acute Care Open, August 6, 2024).

The Texas Observer reported that a vocal Brooks County rancher who leads a paramilitary-style civilian patrol group, along with officials from two mid-Texas counties, have filed suit in a federal court in Corpus Christi, claiming damages from Biden administration policies that they say resulted in “the current, massive flood of illegal entries by foreign nationals from around the world.”

• Francesca D’annunzio, “A Rancher Who Leads a Paramilitary-Style Group Sues Biden Over Border Policies” (The Texas Observer, August 6, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Mother Jones has published a package of articles about “the Border Patrol’s growth, its troubling record on civil liberties, its culture of impunity, and its role in shaping the current political moment.” It includes Erin Siegal McIntyre on impunity for sexual violence within the force, including a 2019 rape at the Border Patrol Academy; Lauren Markham on border technologies and threats to civil liberties; Emily Green on the force’s pro-Trump politicization, led by its union; Isabela Dias on the Trump campaign’s mass-deportation plans; and Ian Gordon and Melissa Lewis on the extent of Border Patrol’s jurisdiction and law enforcement powers, including in areas far from borders.

• “No Boundaries” (Mother Jones, August 7, 2024).

Edgardo Molina, technical coordinator of the Guatemala-Honduras Binational Migration Project, told Honduras’s Criterio of a “worrying trend”: “the increase of stationary migrants, i.e. families who stay in Mexico waiting to cross to the United States and then return to Honduras out of desperation after six or seven months trying to cross.”

• Breidy Hernandez, “Ninez Migrante: Un Viaje de Peligro y un Retorno Sin Proteccion” (Criterio (Honduras), August 6, 2024).

On the Right

• Nolan Rappaport, “The Big Lie About the ‘Bipartisan Border Security Bill’” (The Hill, August 6, 2024).
• Ashley Papa, Michael Ruiz, “Kamala Harris’ Border Czar Record Called Out as Arizona Rancher Reports 100 Illegals Crossing His Land a Day” (Fox News, August 6, 2024).

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Developments

Border Patrol’s apprehensions of migrants between ports of entry dropped below 1,500 on August 4, roughly equal to the daily number of CBP One appointments available at ports of entry (1,450 plus a handful of “walk-ups”). The weekly average “is inching towards the 1,500 [per day] threshold that would deactivate President Biden’s partial asylum ban,” noted Camilo Montoya-Gálvez of CBS News.

• “Camilo Montoya-Galvez @Camiloreports on Twitter” (Twitter, August 5, 2024).

Over the previous 10 days, four Border Patrol officials told the Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli, migrant apprehensions had ranged from 1,670 to 2,500 per day.

• Anna Giaritelli, “Biden’s Border Turnaround? Illegal Immigration Drops to Trump-Era Levels” (The Washington Examiner, August 3, 2024).

CBP is making an adjustment to the feature on its CBP One app allowing asylum seekers in Mexican territory to make appointments at U.S.-Mexico border ports of entry. Since the feature debuted in January 2023, it has been available only to people inside Mexico from Mexico City northward. That geolocation restriction is to expand: soon, people will also be able to use CBP One to make appointments while in Mexico’s southernmost states.

• Maria Verza, Rebecca Santana, “In a Win for Mexico, Us Will Expand Areas for Migrants to Apply Online for Entry at Southern Border” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 3, 2024).
• “Statement From Cbp on Cbp One™ Appointment Scheduling” (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, August 4, 2024).

DHS has suspended the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program for citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela due to suspected fraud in some of the applications for U.S.-based sponsors. The program allows up to a combined 30,000 citizens of these countries to receive a two-year documented status in the United States without having to come to the U.S.-Mexico land border.

Due in part to this pathway’s availability, Border Patrol apprehensions of these countries’ citizens fell to just 3,349 at the U.S.-Mexico border in June, down from a high of 84,208 in December 2022. If the suspension is prolonged, there is some probability that this number will increase again.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “U.S. Pauses Migrant Sponsorship Program Due to Fraud Concerns” (CBS News, August 2, 2024).
• Maria Sacchetti, “Homeland Security Dept. Pauses Biden Parole Program for Four Countries” (The Washington Post, August 2, 2024).
• Jacqueline Charles, Syra Ortiz Blanes, “Biden Parole Program Migrants With Already-Approved Travel Should Be Able to Fly to U.S.” (The Miami Herald, August 4, 2024).
• Salome Ramirez Vargas, “Incertidumbre en Solicitantes al Parole Humanitario Tras Suspension de Permisos de Viaje” (Voz de América, Tal Cual (Venezuela), August 6, 2024).

The frequency of ICE flights removing migrants to other countries dropped a bit from June to July, reverting “to a more typical level of 6.3 per weekday from the one-month evaluation to 7.2 in June, and closer to the prior 6-month average of 6.5,” according to the latest monthly report from Tom Cartwright at Witness on the Border. Two-thirds of flights went to Mexico (16 of 146 in July), El Salvador (12), Guatemala (46), and Honduras (24). Colombia (17) and Ecuador (18) also saw double-digit numbers of ICE removal flights.

• Tom Cartwright, “July 2024 and Last 12 Months” (Witness at the Border, August 4, 2024).

Analyses at Bloomberg, the Center for Engagement and Democracy in the Americas, and the American Conservative relayed expectations that migration from Venezuela is poised to increase following the authoritarian government’s extremely dubious claim to have won July 28 elections.

• Marcelo Rochabrun, Valentina Fuentes, “Venezuela’s Neighbors Fear ‘Exodus That We Cannot Accommodate’” (Bloomberg, msn.com, August 4, 2024).
• “Migration Will Serve as a Clear Indicator of the Evolving Crisis in Venezuela” (Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas, August 2, 2024).
• Joseph Addington, “Chaos in Venezuela May Exacerbate U.S. Border Crisis” (The American Conservative, August 6, 2024).

Nineteen Democratic members of Congress signed a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other officials voicing serious concerns about the humanitarian impact of the Biden administration’s June 2024 rule severely limiting asylum access at the border.

• Rep. Jesus Chuy Garcia (D-Illinois), “Garcia, Barragan, Ramirez, Grijalva Call for Rescission of New Asylum Interim Rule” (U.S. House of Representatives, August 2, 2024).

Mexico’s Milenio toured one of the Mexican government migration authority’s new “remodeled” detention centers, where single adult migrants are held for up to 36 hours. The article describes it as “a place without armed guards, prison-like cells, rooms free of padlocks and bars, and no families or minors in sight.”

• Ivan Cabanzo, “Remodelan Centros en Busca del Bienestar de Migrantes” (Milenio (Mexico), August 4, 2024).

In Starr County, in south Texas, landowner Florentino Luera has filed a federal lawsuit to prevent CBP and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from seizing his land to build a segment of border wall. The Biden administration is building a stretch of wall in Starr County because it is compelled to do so by appropriations legislation passed during the Trump administration.

• Sandra Sanchez, “South Texas Landowner Sues Cbp After Agency Twice Tries to Take Land for Border Wall” (Border Report, August 5, 2024).
• Dina Arevalo, “Starr Man Sues Feds Over Land Taken for Border Wall” (The Brownsville Herald, August 2, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

The Atlantic has published a deeply reported feature about migration through the Darién Gap, by Caitlin Dickerson, who won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the Trump administration’s family separation policy. Dickerson walked the entire length of the treacherous Darién trail and spoke to many migrants and officials about the untenable situation there. She concludes that attempting to deter migrants by making the trip more miserable does not reduce migration, but it does result in more death and suffering.

• Caitlin Dickerson, “Seventy Miles in the Darien Gap” (The Atlantic, August 6, 2024).

At the Wall Street Journal, Michelle Hackman and Santiago Perez dive into how a “chutes and ladders” migration crackdown in Mexico, combined with the Biden administration’s June 5 ban on most asylum between border ports of entry, has led migrant arrivals at the border to plummet this year.

• Michelle Hackman, Santiago Perez, “How the U.S. and Mexico Drove Border Crossings Down in an Election Year” (The Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2024).

Faced with new obstacles to northward migration, like a suspension of visa-free arrivals to Ecuador, U.S.-bound citizens of China “are now attempting to start their overland journeys from as far away as La Paz, Bolivia, roughly 7,000 miles and nine border crossings from Tijuana,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

• Wenxin Fan, “Chinese Migrants Rush to Find Way to U.S. Border Before Doors Close” (The Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2024).

The Atlantic’s Caitlin Dickerson (in another piece), Eduardo Porter of the Washington Post editorial board, and former officials at the Center for American Progress published analyses of Kamala Harris’s record on hemisphere-wide migration policy. The CAP authors touted the success of Harris’s approach to “root causes” of migration from Central America, while Porter questioned its relevance to larger U.S. border and migration challenges. Dickerson pointed out that people’s often agonized decisions to migrate rarely have anything to do with the current state of U.S. immigration policy.

• Caitlin Dickerson, “There’s No Such Thing as a Border Czar” (The Atlantic, August 2, 2024).
• Eduardo Porter, “Harris’s Border Portfolio Was Irrelevant to America’s Immigration Challenges” (The Washington Post, August 5, 2024).
• Dan Restrepo, Debu Gandhi, Tom Jawetz, “Vice President Kamala Harris and Migration in the Americas: Setting the Record Straight” (Center for American Progress, August 5, 2024).
• Emily Hallas, “Vance Fashions Himself as New ‘Border Czar’ in Plot Twist Against Harris” (The Washington Examiner, August 2, 2024).

People close to the Harris campaign told NBC News that the Vice President plans to lean into the border and migration issue between now and Election Day, even though some polling has showed it as a potential liability. At MNSBC, the Cato Institute’s David Bier urged Harris to run on a platform of defending immigrants.

• Gabe Gutierrez, “Harris Is Talking About Immigration More, and Her Allies Think It Could Be a Political Advantage” (NBC News, August 5, 2024).
• David J. Bier, “Kamala Harris Shouldn’t Ignore Immigration. She Should Run on It.” (Cato Institute, MSNBC, August 4, 2024).

“We can’t have border control without gun control,” Jean Guerrero wrote at the New Republic, noting the southbound flow of U.S. weapons to organized crime in nations to the south from which large numbers of people migrate. Guerrero called on Kamala Harris “and every major Democrat” to “beat the drum about this as often as the Republican Party spews hate against immigrants.”

• Jean Guerrero, “Kamala Harris Should Reframe Immigration as a Gun Control Issue” (The New Republic, August 5, 2024).

Writing in the Los Angeles Times after participating in a borderland humanitarian water drop, novelist Laura Pritchett lamented the “proximity principle,” which reduces people’s empathy for suffering—like that of migrants risking death in the desert—that they do not witness firsthand.

• Laura Pritchett, “When It Comes to the U.S.-Mexico Border, Can People Think Beyond Politics?” (The Los Angeles Times, August 5, 2024).

On the Right

• “Terror at Our Door: How the Biden-Harris Administration’s Open-Borders Policies Undermine National Security and Endanger Americans” (U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, August 5, 2024).
• Sen. Tommy Tuberville, “The Kamalafornia Republic” (The American Conservative, August 6, 2024).
• Jennie Taer, “Greg Abbott Says Kamala Harris Has ‘Failed Miserably’ on the Border — Claims Past Comments Are a ‘Magnet to More Illegal Immigrants’” (The New York Post, August 4, 2024).
• Timothy h.j. Nerozzi, “Biden’s Immigration Obsession” (The American Conservative, August 5, 2024).

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Developments

As July 2024 came to a close, the New York Times, Associated Press, and CBS News reported that Border Patrol apprehended “around 57,000” or “under 60,000” migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border during the month. While we may not know the exact count until mid-August, it appears to be by far the lowest monthly migration total of the Biden administration’s 42 months in office: the second-lowest month, June 2024, saw 83,536 Border Patrol apprehensions. July was the month of fewest migrant apprehensions since September 2020.

• Hamed Aleaziz, “Border Arrests in July Drop to Low Under Biden” (The New York Times, July 31, 2024).
• Elliot Spagat, “Us Arrests at Mexico Border Are Expected to Drop 30% in July to a New Low for Biden’s Presidency” (Associated Press, Associated Press, July 31, 2024).
• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Unlawful Border Crossings Drop for 5th Straight Month, Reaching Lowest Level Since September 2020” (CBS News, August 1, 2024).

The drop—down from a high of 249,739 in December—owes to a Mexican government crackdown on migration that began in January, and on the Biden administration’s implementation of a June 5 rule severely limiting access to the U.S. asylum system for people who cross the border between ports of entry.

• Dan Gooding, “Officers Tell Migrants They ‘Don’t Care’ While Enforcing Biden’s Asylum Ban” (Newsweek, July 31, 2024).

WOLA mourns the passing of Eduardo (Eddie) Canales (1948-2024) of the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, Texas. Falfurrias is in Brooks County, where dozens of migrants perish each year trying to walk around a longstanding Border Patrol highway checkpoint. Canales pioneered the placement of humanitarian water stations in ranch land, and had been instrumental to efforts to help families locate the remains of missing loved ones. He was featured in the award-winning 2021 documentary Missing in Brooks County.

At GoFundMe, one can make a donation to support Eddie’s family and his memorial services.

• “Adam Isacson @adam_wola on Twitter” (Twitter, July 31, 2024).

Venezuelan migrants in Mexico City told the Associated Press that, as instability and repression worsen following a fraudulent July 28 election result in their home country, they fear for their relatives left behind.

• Mariana Martinez Barba, “Venezuelan Migrants in Mexico Worry for Their Loved Ones as Political Unrest Roils Their Homeland” (Associated Press, Associated Press, July 31, 2024).

CBP reported seizing 453 kilograms of fentanyl pills hidden in the frame of a utility trailer at the Lukeville port of entry in southwestern Arizona.

• Marco A. Flores, “Decomiso Mas Grande de Fentanilo en la Historia del Cbp Cae en la Frontera Entre Sonora y Arizona” (Milenio (Mexico), July 31, 2024).

Hours after he gave television interviews about organized crime extortion—including the closure of 191 Oxxo convenience stores in the border city of Nuevo Laredo—gunmen shot to death Julio Almanza, the head of the business chambers federation of the border state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. The shooting happened on July 29 in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

• Alfredo Pena, “Extortion and Gang Violence Are Hitting Even Big Corporations and Business Leaders in Mexico” (Associated Press, Associated Press, July 31, 2024).

Colombia’s army reported rescuing three in-transit migrants from India who were kidnapped for ransom and held for four days in the southwestern department of Nariño, after crossing from Ecuador.

• “Rescatan en Colombia a Tres Ciudadanos de India Que Fueron Secuestrados Cerca de Frontera Con Ecuador” (El Universo (Guayaquil Ecuador), July 31, 2024).

Of 959 citizens of Ecuador interviewed by UNHCR along the US-bound migration route in 2023, 59% said they were fleeing “generalized violence” and 28% said they themselves had been victims of violence.

• “Ecuador: Mapeo de Desplazamiento de Personas Ecuatorianas en la Region 2022 – 2023” (UN Refugee Agency, July 31, 2024).

Meeting with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Honduras’s foreign minister, Enrique Reina, “agreed to further streamline its coordination with the United States on removals of Honduran noncitizens.” Between January and June, ICE deported Hondurans aboard 180 removal flights.

• “Readout of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’s Meeting With Foreign Minister Enrique Reina of Honduras” (Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, July 31, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Analyses at MSNBC noted Democrats’ tactic of seeking to attack Donald Trump from the right on border security, citing Trump’s February push to scuttle passage of a Senate “border deal” bill that would have hired more Border Patrol agents and placed limits on asylum access similar to those in the Biden administration’s June 5 rule. Roll Call noted how the Trump campaign has pivoted from attacking Joe Biden for being “soft” on border security to attacking Kamala Harris for the same.

• Steve Benen, “Time to Update the Talking Points: Border Conditions Keep Improving” (MSNBC, July 31, 2024).
• Steve Benen, “Why It Matters That Mark Kelly Is Slamming Trump for Killing a Border Deal” (MSNBC, July 31, 2024).
• Chris Johnson, “Trump and Gop Turn Border Policy Blame Toward Harris” (Roll Call, July 31, 2024).

Analyses of the Fifth Circuit’s July 30 ruling allowing the state of Texas, for now, to keep its “wall of buoys” in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass note that judges’ arguments focused on the river’s navigability in that part of Texas. Only one conservative judge on the eighteen-judge panel seemed to share the Republican state government’s view that increased migration constitutes an “invasion.”

• Ilya Somin, “En Banc Fifth Circuit Rules for Texas in Water Buoy Case, but Doesn’t Resolve Issue of Whether Illegal Migration Qualifies As “Invasion”” (George Mason University, Reason, July 31, 2024).
• Sarah Asch, “Fifth Circuit Rules Texas Border Buoys Can Stay Until Trial Decides Lawsuit by the Feds” (Texas Standard, July 31, 2024).

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Developments

A 38-year-old mother from Ecuador was found dead along the Mexican side of the border wall, south of Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector (southeast California), on July 22. Border Patrol agents found the victim’s 10-year-old daughter alive next to her body. The cause of death appeared to be heat exhaustion and/or dehydration.

• “Cuerpo de Migrante Ecuatoriana Fue Hallado en Frontera Entre Mexico y Estados Unidos, su Hija de 10 Anos la Acompanaba” (El Universo (Guayaquil Ecuador), July 30, 2024).
• “Usbp Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino @Usbpchiefelc on Twitter” (Twitter, Monday, July 29, 2024)

In an en banc ruling, the federal judiciary’s Fifth Circuit permitted Texas’s state government to keep a 1,000-foot string of buoys and serrated metal discs floating in the middle of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass while legal challenges continue. The ruling overturned an appeals court’s earlier decision. A trial over the buoys themselves—not the injunction preventing their use while arguments continue—is to begin on August 6 in Austin.

One of the notoriously conservative circuit’s Judges, James Ho, submitted an opinion supporting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) use of the Constitution’s “invasion” clause, implying that migrants and asylum seekers are foreign invaders against whom Texas may defend itself.

• Ryan Autullo, “Texas Can Maintain Floating Border Barriers, Fifth Circuit Rules” (Bloomberg Law, July 30, 2024).
• “Aaron Torres @aarontorres_ on Twitter” (Twitter, July 30, 2024).
• “Raffi Melkonian @Rmfifthcircuit on Twitter” (Twitter, July 30, 2024).

The border and migration were core issues in dueling campaign ads and speeches issued in the past 48 hours by Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

In a new video ad and at an Atlanta campaign rally yesterday, Harris attacked Trump for leading opposition to a Senate “border deal” bill in February that would have paid for hiring more Border Patrol agents and would have cut off asylum access when border encounters exceed a daily threshold. “As president, I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed, and I will sign it into law,” Harris said yesterday.

• Asma Khalid, “Harris Tries to Flip the Script on Trump on the Border During Raucous Georgia Speech” (National Public Radio, July 30, 2024).
• Priscilla Alvarez, “Harris Campaign Offers First Glimpse of Its Immigration Offensive” (CNN, July 30, 2024).

(See past daily links posts for coverage of that failed legislation. On June 5 the Biden administration began implementing a rule, without legislation backing it up, that bans asylum when daily Border Patrol apprehensions exceed 2,500.) On Monday the union representing asylum officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) filed a brief in support of the ACLU’s lawsuit seeking to block the June 5 rule.

• Hamed Aleaziz, “Asylum Officers’ Union Opposes Biden Border Restrictions” (The New York Times, July 30, 2024).

The Trump campaign continued attacking Harris with themes (criminals, fentanyl, and terrorists allegedly crossing the border) that appeared in its first television ad of the general election, released Monday. At a press conference, Senate Republicans featured a blown-up printout of a 2017 tweet from then-senator Harris reading, “An undocumented migrant is not a criminal.” (This is true: being in the United States without documentation is not a criminal offense.)

• Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana), “Daines: ‘If You Like San Francisco Politics, You’ll Love Kamala Harris’” (U.S. Senate, July 30, 2024).
• Frank Bruni, “Trump vs. ‘America’s Border Czar’” (The New York Times, July 30, 2024).

Media analyses continued to explore Harris’s vice presidential record on border and migration policy, particularly her performance as the Biden administration’s point person on addressing the root causes of migration from Central America.

Though her initial efforts in that role were “widely panned, even by some Democrats,” the New York Times stated, she later had “some success” in “a role that came to be defined as a combination of chief fund-raiser and conduit between business leaders and the economies” of northern Central America, particularly in encouraging private-sector investment.

Though it is hard to assign weight to the long-term strategy that Harris oversaw, U.S.-Mexico border encounters with migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras dropped from an average of 58,420 per month in fiscal 2021 to 38,657 per month (-34%) so far in fiscal 2024. By contrast, average monthly encounters with all nationalities increased 40 percent during that period.

• Jazmine Ulloa, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, “As Republicans Attack Harris on Immigration, Here’s What Her Record Shows” (The New York Times, July 31, 2024).
• Carine Hajjar, “‘Czar’ or Not, Kamala Harris Bungled Immigration” (The Boston Globe, July 30, 2024).

Operating on the assumption that then-senator Harris’s support of migrant rights and asylum could be a liability in the national presidential campaign, analyses at the Washington Post and NBC News suggested that Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona)—a “border hawk” who opposed lifting the Title 42 pandemic expulsions policy—would be a vice-presidential running mate who could shield her from charges of being insufficiently tough on the border.

• Liz Goodwin, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, “Mark Kelly Could Help Harris on a Challenging Issue: Immigration” (The Washington Post, July 30, 2024).
• Sahil Kapur, “Border State Hawk Mark Kelly as Vp Pick Could Help Shield Harris on a Major Liability” (NBC News, July 30, 2024).

Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance is to visit the U.S.-Mexico border in southeast Arizona on Thursday.

• Brett Samuels, “Vance to Visit Southern Border as Trump Campaign Hits Harris on Immigration” (The Hill, July 30, 2024).
• “JD Vance to Visit Cochise County Border With Mexico Thursday” (The Sierra Vista Herald Review, July 30, 2024).

President Joe Biden is to sign a national security memorandum on Wednesday increasing information-sharing between federal and local law enforcement agencies about flows of fentanyl, including cross-border flows.

• Aamer Madhani, “Biden Prods Congress to Act to Curb Fentanyl From Mexico as Trump Paints Harris as Weak on Border” (Associated Press, Associated Press, July 31, 2024).

Venezuelan migrants waiting in Ciudad Juárez for CBP One appointments told La Verdad de Juárez that they are distraught and frustrated by authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro’s fraudulent re-election in national voting on July 28. “Everyone is crying, is sad because we had hope that this was going to settle,” said a man who has been waiting four months for a CBP One appointment.

• Raul Flores, “Con Frustracion, Venezolanos en Ciudad Juarez Rechazan Resultados de la Eleccion en Venezuela” (La Verdad (Ciudad Juarez Mexico), July 30, 2024).

In response to the Venezuelan outcome and likely repression, Antonia Urrejola, a former Chilean foreign minister and ex-president of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, advised the region’s governments to “begin to prepare a coordinated response to the migratory wave [from Venezuela] that could occur in the coming weeks or months.”

• Francisco Artaza, “Antonia Urrejola, Excanciller: “Es Urgente Que los Paises de la Region Coordinen una Respuesta para una Nueva Ola Migratoria Venezolana”” (La Tercera (Chile), July 30, 2024).

With migrant arrivals at the border down to levels not seen since the fall of 2020, New York City is now measuring fewer than 1,000 migrants seeking shelter for the first time since October 2022, Gothamist reported.

• Arya Sundaram, “Weekly Migrant Arrivals in Nyc Dip Below 1,000 for the First Time Since 2022” (Gothamist, July 30, 2024).

Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts), Rep. Grace Meng (D-New York), Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Illinois), and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-New York) introduced the “Destination Reception Assistance Act,” which would assist asylum-seeking migrants and the U.S. communities receiving them. Several prominent Democratic legislators and NGO leaders added comments endorsing the bill.

• Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), “Senator Markey and Reps. Meng, Ramirez, Espaillat Introduce Destination Reception Assistance Act to Support Local Reception of New Arrivals” (U.S. Senate, July 30, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

The New York Times fact-checked Donald Trump’s claim that crime has declined in Venezuela because Nicolás Maduro’s regime has sent the country’s criminals to the United States. This is false: to the extent that crime has decreased in Venezuela, it represents a consolidation of organized crime control within the country, with fewer competing gangs.

• Jorge Valencia, “Trump Says Venezuela Sends Criminals to the U.S. Here’s What to Know.” (The New York Times, July 31, 2024).

The conservative outlet NewsNation, citing a Border Patrol “internal safety bulletin,” reported that 1,000 members of Venezuela’s “Tren de Aragua” organized crime group are in the United States with orders to attack police. West Texas border district Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) gave comments amplifying the allegation.

• Ali Bradley, “Over 1,000 Venezuelan Crime Organization Members in US” (NewsNation, July 30, 2024).
• Julian Resendiz, “10,000 Foreign Criminals Have Slipped Through Border, Congressman Says” (Border Report, July 30, 2024).

Due to a suspension of government funding, five temporary shelters for in-transit migrants closed in Guatemala between November 2023 and March 2024, according to Expediente Público.

• Marysabel Aldana, “Cierran Casas para Migrantes en Guatemala” (Expediente Publico, July 31, 2024).

On the Right

• Elizabeth Heckman, “Texas Governor, Border Patrol Council Say They’ve Never Heard From Vp Harris: ‘Abject Failure’” (Fox News, July 30, 2024).

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Developments

Donald Trump’s campaign released its first television ad of the general election, and it focuses on the U.S.-Mexico border. It “attacks likely Democratic nominee Kamala Harris as an evasive, weak and distracted leader who did not protect the U.S.-Mexico border from drug trafficking, increased migrant crossings and a possible terrorism threat,” the Washington Post reported.

The ad begins with an image of Harris and the line, “This is ‘America’s Border Czar,’ and she has failed us.” The Vice President, who was tasked only with addressing root causes of migration in Central America, never held such a title.

• Michael Scherer, “Trump campaign attacks Kamala Harris in a new immigration-focused ad” (The Washington Post, July 30, 2024).

“She was given a very hard, difficult, convoluted portfolio,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, told Reuters of the “Central America root causes” role that the Biden administration assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris in early 2021. The Reuters report goes on to evaluate the objectives that Harris, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, pursued in that role.

• Kristina Cooke, Mica Rosenberg, Ted Hesson, “Republicans Call Harris a Failed Border Czar. The Truth Is More Complicated.” (Reuters, Reuters, July 30, 2024).

The Senate Appropriations Committee was set to mark up (amend and approve a draft of) the 2025 Homeland Security Appropriations bill, which funds DHS and its components. It will not do so, however, due to disagreements over funding for the Secret Service. The chamber is almost certain to leave Washington for its August recess without a Homeland Appropriations bill out of committee.

• “Ellen M. Gilmer @Ellengilmer on Twitter” (Twitter, July 29, 2024).

The California-based iNewSource describes disturbing Border Patrol body-worn camera footage of the March death of Guatemalan migrant Petronila Elizabeth Poma Perez, who fell from the border wall near San Diego after hanging and crying for help for over 20 minutes while agents awaited backup. The article points to a lack of coordination between Border Patrol agents and local fire department personnel.

• Sofia Mejias-Pascoe, “She Cried for Help Atop U.S.-Mexico Border Fence, Then Fell to Death” (inewsource, July 29, 2024).

NewsNation reported that Border Patrol has built a layer of secondary border fencing in its El Centro, California sector in order to “try and stop the flow of fentanyl.”

• Ali Bradley, Patrick Djordjevic, “Calif. Border Agents Install Second Border Wall to Stop Fentanyl Flow” (NewsNation, Border Report, July 29, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Though Panama’s new president, José Raúl Mulino, has used barbed wire to block at least five paths in the Darién Gap, “I can say that Mulino’s plan has little chance of succeeding,” wrote Thomson Reuters correspondent Anastasia Moloney, who has walked the Colombian side of the dangerous route traversed by more than half a million migrants last year. “When there’s a crackdown on migrant routes, smugglers respond by raising their fees.”

• Anastasia Moloney, “Why It’s Impossible to Close the Darien Gap With Barbed-Wire” (Thomson Reuters Foundation, Context, July 30, 2024).

A brief from the Women’s Refugee Commission lays out several recommendations to promote orderly and safe migration throughout the Americas, including more legal migration pathways including an improved Cuba-Haiti-Nicaragua-Venezuela parole program; improving the Safe Mobility Initiative currently active in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala; working with civil society to implement commitments in the 2022 Los Angeles Declaration; support for Mexico’s asylum system and migrant shelters, and supporting deported non-Mexican migrants’ integration in Mexico.

• “Migration Does Not Start at the Us Border: A Regional Approach to Managing Migration and Keeping People Safe” (Women’s Refugee Commission, July 29, 2024).

Reporting from Ciudad Juárez, NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán talked to asylum seekers who have been trying for as many as nine months to secure one of 200 daily CBP One appointments at an El Paso port of entry.

• Sergio Martinez-Beltran, “Illegal Crossings Hit Biden-Era Low as Migrants Wait Longer for Entry” (National Public Radio, July 30, 2024).

CBS News visited El Paso’s Annunciation House migrant shelter, which has been the subject of a legal assault from the Texas state attorney general, Ken Paxton (R), who claims that it is a “stash house” for undocumented people. In early July a state judge blocked Paxton’s effort to demand that the shelter provide documents, but Paxton is appealing that decision to Texas’s State Supreme Court.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, Suvro Banerji, “Texas Targets Faith-Based Groups Helping Migrants Along U.S.-Mexico Border” (CBS News, July 29, 2024).

Cronkite News looked at the legal hurdles that would remain if Arizona voters approve Proposition 314, which would make it a state crime to cross the border without federal inspection. The Biden administration Justice Department is already challenging a similar Texas law, S.B. 4, which remains on hold pending appeals.

• Alex Cunningham, “Arizona’s Ballot Measure on Border Law Faces Legal Hurdles if Approved” (Cronkite News, The Arizona Daily Star, July 29, 2024).

On the Right

• Phillip Linderman, “Secure the Mexican Border by Using Section 212(F)” (The American Conservative, July 30, 2024).
• A.G. Gancarski, “Czar to Believe: Democrats Didn’t Rush to Absolve Vp Kamala Harris of Border Blame” (The New York Post, July 29, 2024).

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Developments

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, told CBS News that, if elected, Harris would keep in place the Biden administration’s current restrictions on asylum access at the U.S.-Mexico border. “The policies that are, you know, having a real impact on ensuring that we have security and order at our border are policies that will continue,” Chávez Rodríguez told CBS reporter Camilo Montoya-Gálvez.

This means that Harris might keep in place the June 2024 rule prohibiting asylum for most migrants who arrive at the border between ports of entry, and the May 2023 rule prohibiting asylum for migrants between ports of entry who did not first seek protection in a third country en route to the United States. Both rules are facing legal challenges, as U.S. law guarantees the right to seek asylum on U.S. soil regardless of how the asylum seeker arrived.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Kamala Harris’ Campaign Chief Signals She Would Keep Biden’s Border Crackdown if Elected” (CBS News, July 27, 2024).

While this story is far from over, the Venezuelan regime’s evidence-free announcement that President Nicolás Maduro won July 28 elections dashes hopes that a transition from authoritarianism to democracy might reduce or even reverse migration from the South American nation. Instead, if Maduro’s victory stands, polling of Venezuelans indicates that more will consider leaving.

• Leopoldo Lopez, Markos Kounalakis, “Venezuelan Elections Could Turn the Refugee Tide” (Washington Monthly, July 28, 2024).

Venezuelans awaiting CBP One appointments in Ciudad Juárez told El Imparcial that they fear that the country’s political and economic crises will make life there even more intolerable.

• Tadeo Campoy, “Venezolanos Varados en la Frontera de Mexico Temen Agudizacion de la Crisis Tras Elecciones en Venezuela” (El Imparcial (Tijuana Mexico), July 28, 2024).

A bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators and representatives met in Mexico City last week with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum. Border and migration concerns “took center stage” in their conversations, reported the Arizona Republic.

• Silvia Solis, “Border Security, Economy Took Center Stage in Talks Between Sheinbaum, Members of Congress” (The Arizona Republic, July 27, 2024).

The flow of northbound-transiting migrants into Honduras from Nicaragua has fallen by more than half, from 1,482 per day in May to 791 per day during the first 24 months of July. “Migration experts claim that the significant decrease is due to the closure of several points in the Darien Jungle,” reported Nicaragua’s Radio Corporación.

• “Disminuyen Cruces Irregulares de Migrantes Entre Nicaragua y Honduras” (Radio Corporación (Nicaragua), July 27, 2024).

Though 97 percent of fentanyl seizures have been happening in Arizona and California, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is devoting more interdiction resources to the El Paso area out of a belief that crackdowns further west may push cross-border opioid smugglers to west Texas, Milenio reported.

• Norma Ponce, “Eu Redobla Operativos en Frontera Chihuahua – Texas para Combatir el Trafico de Fentanilo” (Milenio (Mexico), July 28, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Major media outlets published more analyses of Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s border and migration record.

In an in-depth piece at the New Yorker, Jonathan Blitzer recalled that Harris never had a position of responsibility for managing the border: instead, she was charged with addressing root causes of migration from Central America. This “was, by definition, slow and strategic work—essential from a policy perspective but politically inopportune.”

• Jonathan Blitzer, “The Real Story of Kamala Harris’s Record on Immigration” (The New Yorker, July 28, 2024).

“The distinction has not stopped Republicans from misleadingly branding Harris as the nation’s ‘border czar’ and blaming her for the sharp upticks in migration under the Biden administration,” read an analysis by Lauren Gambino at the Guardian, which notes that as a senator, Harris was an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s border policies.

• Lauren Gambino, “Republicans Want to Grill Harris for Her Immigration Record – but What Is It?” (The Guardian (Uk), July 27, 2024).

Progressive Democratic legislators, and leaders of Latino and immigrants’ rights groups, are supporting Harris despite disagreements with the Biden administration’s hardening of some border and migration policies, like its bans on asylum, the New York Times reported.

• Jazmine Ulloa, “Latino Leaders Set Aside Their Rocky Past With Kamala Harris on Immigration” (The New York Times, July 27, 2024).

Centrist Democratic legislators, Politico reported, are pushing for Harris to name as her vice-presidential candidate Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who they say “knows the border well.” Kelly is among a handful of Democratic senators who urged the Biden administration to keep the Title 42 pandemic expulsions policy in place before it expired in May 2023.

• Adam Cancryn, Anthony Adragna, Sarah Ferris, Ursula Perano, “Hill Dems Believe This Vp Contender Would Help Address Harris’ Biggest Weakness” (Politico, July 28, 2024).

Joe Biden’s administration has expelled or deported more migrants than Donald Trump’s, recalls a Politico analysis by Jack Herrera. This is largely because Biden’s administration has seen a much larger population of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

• Jack Herrera, “Trump Says He Wants to Deport Millions. He’ll Have a Hard Time Removing More People Than Biden Has.” (Politico, July 28, 2024).

A Washington Post feature looked at Chinese migration to the U.S.-Mexico border, which has increased sharply in the past 18 months. Migrants cite economic hardship and political repression, exacerbated by COVID-19 lockdowns, as primary reasons for leaving. Those interviewed by the Post paid smugglers between $8,000 and $60,000 per person for their journeys to the United States. Ecuador, which has been most Chinese migrants’ first entry into the Americas mainland, recently suspended visas for arriving Chinese citizens, but higher-priced alternative smuggling routes emerged “within days.”

• Cate Cadell, Li Qiang, Nick Miroff, “Migrants From China ‘Walk the Line’ to U.S. Border, Testing Biden and Xi” (The Washington Post, July 29, 2024).

“With its latest anti-asylum rule, mirroring similar bans by Trump, the Biden administration is forcing individuals into the hands of traffickers and cartels, pushing them to more dangerous routes,” wrote Jennifer Babaie of the El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center at the Austin American-Statesman.

• Jennifer Babaie, “U.S. Treatment of Refugees Is Cruel, Forcing Them Into the Hands of Cartels” (Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, The Austin American-Statesman, July 29, 2024).

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Developments

By a vote of 220-196, the Republican-majority House of Representatives approved a resolution “Strongly condemning the Biden Administration and its Border Czar, Kamala Harris’s, failure to secure the United States border.”

Six Democrats from swing districts voted with the Republicans: Yadira Caraveo (Denver suburbs, Colorado); Henry Cuéllar (Laredo and Rio Grande Valley, Texas); Donald Davis (northeastern North Carolina); Jared Golden (rural Maine); Mary Peltola (Alaska); and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (southwestern Washington).

The resolution had originally read “on March 24, 2021, President Biden asked Vice President Kamala Harris to serve as the administration’s border czar.” After Democrats in the House Rules Committee pointed out that this was factually inaccurate, the language changed to “came to be known colloquially as the Biden administration’s ‘border czar.’”

“This is like voting on a press release. What a colossal waste of time,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee.

• Stephen Groves, “House Republicans Vote to Rebuke Kamala Harris Over Administration’s Handling of Border Policy” (Associated Press, Associated Press, July 25, 2024).
• “Rep. Jim McGovern @RepMcGovern on Twitter” (Twitter, July 25, 2024).

Much press coverage continues to analyze Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’s border and migration record. Republican statements and advertising, meanwhile, continue to seek lines of attack on the same issue.

Media analyses point out that Harris’s role was not the “border” but addressing “root causes” of migration from Central America. A Los Angeles Times examination of Harris’s role indicated that the Vice President’s interest in the issue flagged during her tenure.

• Andrea Castillo, Kate Linthicum, Kevin Rector, Patrick J. Mcdonnell, “Republicans Frame Kamala Harris as a Failed ‘Border Czar.’ What Did She Really Do on Migration as Vp?” (Los Angeles Times, Yahoo!, July 26, 2024).
• Lauren Villagran, Rebecca Morin, “Border Politics Heat Up in White House Race: Where Does Harris Stand on Immigration?” (USA Today, July 25, 2024).
• Paola Nagovitch, “No, Kamala Harris Was Never the ‘Border Czar’” (El Pais (Spain), July 26, 2024).
• Max Cohen, “The Harris Border Ads Hit the Airwaves” (Punchbowl News, July 26, 2024).
• Stephen Dinan, “Biden Claims Credit for Low Border Encounters in Critical Political Moment for His Vice President” (The Washington Times, July 25, 2024).
• Phil Boas, “‘Border Czar’ or Not, Kamala Harris Ran From Her Job to Get the Border Under Control” (The Arizona Republic, July 25, 2024).
• Ashley Papa, Michael Ruiz, “Kamala Harris’ House Condemnation for Border Failure ‘Long Overdue but Absolutely Warranted’: Brandon Judd” (Fox News, July 26, 2024).
• Billal Rahman, “Kamala Harris ‘Owns’ Migrant Crisis, Former Border Chief Says” (Newsweek, July 26, 2024).

On a visit to the border in San Diego, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) added to attacks on what he called “the Biden-Harris border catastrophe,” adding the false talking point that undocumented migrants will play a role in voter fraud against Republicans in the November elections.

• Jasmine Ramirez, “House Speaker Visits San Diego’s Southern Border to Discuss Immigration” (KFMB, July 25, 2024).

Border Patrol has now found the remains of 140 migrants in its El Paso sector, a segment of the border stretching from the Arizona-New Mexico border to just east of El Paso, during fiscal year 2024. In all of fiscal 2023, the figure was 149 migrant deaths, a record for the sector that is certain to be broken, as the region’s scorching-hot summer is far from over.

The rising fatalities are occurring even as migrant apprehensions plummet in the sector (and border-wide). It may be that, with asylum blocked for many under the Biden administration’s new June 2024 restrictions, more people are trying to evade apprehension in the desert. The organization No More Deaths announced a new update to its El Paso migrant death map for 2024.

• Julian Resendiz, “Border Patrol Appeals to Migrant Relatives as Death Toll Now at 140 in el Paso Sector” (Border Report, July 25, 2024).

The Senate Appropriations Committee will “mark up” (amend and approve its version of) the 2025 Homeland Security Appropriations bill on Thursday, August 1. The bill text is not yet public.

• “Full Committee Markup of Energy and Water Development; Defense; Labor, Health, and Human Services; Homeland Security; And Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Acts” (Senate Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate, July 25, 2024).

After suffering judicial setbacks in efforts to prosecute or sue El Paso’s Annunciation House and McAllen’s Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton (R) is now going after a third respite center that receives migrants released from CBP custody. Paxton is now seeking to compel management of Team Brownsville to sit for a deposition. The hard-right state official believes that these charities, whose work prevents releases of migrants onto border cities’ streets, are encouraging undocumented migration.

• Sandra Sanchez, “Texas Attorney General Going After 3rd Border Nonprofit That Helps Migrants” (Border Report, July 25, 2024).

A CBP helicopter “made an emergency landing or crashed into Mexican territory” near Laredo yesterday evening.

• “U.S. Border Patrol Helicopter Reportedly Crashes, Lands on Mexican Territory” (KGNS (Laredo Texas), July 25, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

A new report from nine U.S. organizations presented more than 30 examples of due process and human rights violations suffered by asylum seekers at the border since the Biden administration’s June 5 rule restricting asylum went into effect. Abuses include arbitrary deportations without an opportunity to seek protection in the United States; obstacles to accessing legal representation; inhumane detention conditions; and family separations.

• “Six Weeks After Biden’s Second Asylum Ban Took Effect, Advocates Report Rampant Rights Violations at U.S.-Mexico Border” (Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, Hope Border Institute, Human Rights First, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, National Immigrant Justice Center, Refugees International, the National Immigration Law Center, Women’s Refugee Commission, National Immigrant Justice Center, July 25, 2024).

The outcome of Venezuela’s Sunday presidential election could have a big effect on migration from a country that has seen a quarter of its population exit since the mid-2010s. If the opposition wins, as polls predict, migration could slow and some Venezuelans could return. If the authoritarian Maduro regime declares itself the victor, migration could increase further.

• Astrid Suarez, Gisela Salomon, Nayara Batschke, Teresa Medrano, “Forced to Emigrate, Venezuelans Living Abroad Hope for Change — and to Eventually Return Home” (Associated Press, July 25, 2024).
• Dan Gooding, “Venezuelan Presidential Election Could Impact Migrants Headed to Us” (Newsweek, July 25, 2024).