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This is a result of fentanyl taking over the U.S. illegal opioid market.
November 22, 2022 — 0
The bottom fell out of heroin seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border during fiscal 2022
Statistics
November 19, 2022 — 0
Roughly Equal: U.S.-Bound Migration from the Andes and from Central America
The number of migrants at the US-Mexico border from the Andes now equals the number of migrants at the US-Mexico border from Central America. Never happened before.
November 19, 2022 — 0
Which countries’ migrants are—and are not—being expelled from the US-Mexico border under Title 42
Note the big increase in expulsions of Venezuelans: Mexico began allowing that to happen on October 12.
The US government’s fiscal year 2023 began in October, so “2023” here is one month’s data. Data tables are here.
November 17, 2022 — 0
U.S.-Mexico Border Migrants’ Nationalities
Largest increases in US-Mexico border migration, August-October: citizens of
- Russia 139%
- Ecuador 90%
- Nicaragua 78%
- Cuba 51%
Largest decreases: citizens of
- Brazil -87%
- Romania -30%
- Honduras -14%
- Venezuela -13%
November 16, 2022 — 0
More access at border ports of entry
It’s encouraging that October saw the 2nd-largest number (as far as I’ve seen records) of migrants—many of them asylum seekers—permitted to approach ports of entry (official border crossings). The number-one month was anomalous: last April, when a big wave of Ukrainians came.
Increased processing capacity at the ports means more people were able to ask for asylum the quote-unquote “right” way, instead of jumping the fence or crossing the river in order to turn themselves in to Border Patrol.
Of migrants not expelled in October, 16% came to ports of entry, a greater share than in the past.
November 16, 2022 — 0
Title 42 ends
A not-so-fond farewell to Title 42, which expelled migrants 2,426,297 times from the US-Mexico border with no chance to ask for asylum. Title 42 proved that even especially cruel measures don’t deter desperate people from migrating in historic numbers.
November 16, 2022 — 0
Sudden geographic shifts in migration at the U.S.-Mexico border
El Paso was the busiest of Border Patrol’s nine U.S.-Mexico border sectors in October, measured by number of migrants encountered. In March, El Paso was fifth.
The same border sector data, presented as aggregate numbers, not percentages:
November 15, 2022 — 0
5,885 citizens of Venezuela were expelled into Mexico under the expanded Title 42 in October
Let’s hope that Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision this afternoon striking down Title 42 isn’t stayed by a higher court, and actually ends this.
November 9, 2022 — 0
Busy month for Mexico’s asylum system
Of 2022’s first 10 months, October was second only to March in the number of migrants who applied for asylum in Mexico. The Mexican government’s Refugee Aid Commission (COMAR) received 11,391 requests for protection during October.
The most came from Honduras, Mexico’s number-one asylum-seeking country of citizenship so far in 2022 (3,077 in October), followed by Haiti (third overall in 2022, 1,865 asylum seekers in October), Cuba (second in 2022, 1,674 in October), and Venezuela (fourth in 2022, 1,549 in October). The largest percentage increases in asylum seekers’ countries of citizenship from September to October were those from Venezuela (18%), Guatemala (16.3%), Haiti (16.0%), and Colombia (15%).
It is perhaps unsurprising that Venezuela saw the largest monthly percentage growth in asylum seekers. U.S. border authorities expelled about 6,000 Venezuelan migrants back into Mexico, without affording them a chance to ask for U.S. asylum, under the Title 42 expansion arrangement that the U.S. and Mexico announced on October 12. That means an increased population of Venezuelan citizens stranded in Mexico, and thus more asylum applicants.
COMAR reports approving 93 percent of Venezuelan citizens’ asylum applications this year. That exceeds the approval rate of all other reported nationalities, including Honduras (90%), El Salvador (89%), Cuba (50%), and Haiti (20%).
October 10, 2022 — 0
Darién Gap: 1,606 migrants per day
Panama just posted data about migration through the treacherous, ungoverned Darién Gap jungles that straddle eastern Panama and northwestern Colombia. Once regarded as an impenetrable barrier, this region of old-growth jungle is becoming a superhighway.
The data are mind-boggling. 1,606 migrants per day walked through the Darién in September. 1,280 were citizens of Venezuela, who have begun migrating in large numbers to the United States.
The chart below shows migration through the Darién Gap over the past 13 years. 2021’s record number of Haitian migrants, which seemed unthinkable at the time, has been surpassed by the exodus of 107,692 Venezuelans in 9 months. (Only 219 Venezuelans walked the Darién in all 11 years from 2010 to 2020.)
6.8 million Venezuelans (out of about 30 million) have left their country since the mid-2010s. Many of those coming through the Darién have already lived for years elsewhere in South America, and they’re giving up on trying to survive there.
There is potential for this exodus of Venezuelan migrants to multiply still further in the Darién. This has quickly become the number-one displacement and migration challenge in the hemisphere.
September 12, 2022 — 1
Venezuelan migration through Panama’s Darién gap
23,000 Venezuelan migrants arriving in a month at the US-Mexico border would be big news: it only happened once before, last December.
But in August, 23,632 migrants from Venezuela (green on the below chart) walked through Panama’s dangerous, ungoverned Darién Gap jungle.
8 months into 2022, Panama has exceeded 100,000 migrants through the Darién Gap, and seems certain to break its annual record. That number (133,726) seemed unimaginable last year when tens of thousands of Haitian people (blue on the below chart) came up from South America.
September 8, 2022 — 0
The horror of migrant deaths at the border
Someone at CBP shared with CNN the agency’s latest count of migrant remains found on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border. Forced to take dangerous routes, migrants die often of dehydration, exposure, border wall falls, drownings, animal bites and other preventable causes.
This year is going to shatter all records. (And it’s important to note that CBP doesn’t capture all deaths.) Charting out the numbers of deaths since 1998 leaves me speechless.
In a better world, this would trigger a dramatic change in policy. We wouldn’t even have to advocate for it. But we’re not in a better world—we’re in one where politics continues to be dominated by the myth that migration can be deterred with “border security.”
September 8, 2022 — 0
Mexico’s asylum requests
For the month of August, Mexico’s refugee agency (Mexican Refugee Aid Commission, COMAR) reported receiving its largest number of asylum applications since March. 10,763 people applied for asylum in Mexico last month, boosting COMAR’s annual total to 77,786—already its second-largest asylum total ever. (COMAR received nearly 130,000 applications last year.)
The countries whose migrants have sought asylum in Mexico over 3,000 times in 2022 so far are, from most to least: Honduras, Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Applications from Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, and “other countries” already exceed their 2021 full-year totals.
November 22, 2020 — 0
A few important border graphics
Late Thursday, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released a pile of data about migration and drug seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border in October.
Here are some key trends. Click on any graphic to expand in a new window. You can download a PDF packet of more than 30 of these infographics at bit.ly/wola_border.
November 11, 2020 — 0
Latest table of aid to Colombia
(Cross-posted from colombiapeace.org.)
The Senate Appropriations Committee released a draft of its version of the 2021 aid bill yesterday morning. And two weeks ago, a Congressional Research Service report revealed new data about Defense Department assistance.
The 2021 aid bill hasn’t become law yet, and might not until the next presidential administration. This table depicts the White House’s February request and the House and Senate versions of the bill. The two chambers’ amounts don’t differ widely.
Both the House and Senate packages would dedicate less than half of 2021 aid to Colombia’s military and police. This is a big contrast from the peak years of Plan Colombia between 2000 and 2015, when military and police aid in some years exceeded 80 percent of the total.
Sources for most of these numbers:
- 2016: the 2018 State Department Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations
- 2017: page 1607 of the explanatory statement for the 2017 Omnibus Appropriation, and the 2019 CBJ for Foreign Operations
- 2018: page 1803 of the explanatory statement for the 2018 Omnibus Appropriation, and the 2020 CBJ for Foreign Operations
- 2019: page H908 of the explanatory statement for the 2019 Omnibus Appropriation, and the 2021 CBJ for Foreign Operations
- 2020: Page 53 of Division G of the explanatory statement for the 2020 Omnibus Appropriation
- 2021: The 2021 aid request to Congress from the White House
- 2021 House: The House Appropriations Committee’s July 9, 2020 narrative report
- 2022 Senate: The Senate Appropriations Committee’s November 10, 2020 narrative report
- Defense Department aid 2016-19: Congressional Research Service 2020.
- 2020 transfer of aid from Central America: we’ve heard it from legislative staff, but the only document we can cite right now is coverage of an October 2019 announcement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Colombia’s El Tiempo.
Not reflected here is assistance to Colombia to manage flows of Venezuelan refugees.