Here are Border Patrol’s apprehensions of migrants, by U.S. border state, since the record-setting month of December 2023.

Since December, unauthorized migration has declined by two thirds. Since January—after Mexico started cracking down hard on migrants crossing its territory—migration declined by one third. From May to June, after the Biden administration issued a rule severely limiting asylum access between ports of entry, migration dropped by 29 percent. (This effect is likely to be short-term, but may keep numbers down through Election Day—even as it sends many would-be asylum seekers back to danger.)

Texas’s hardline governor, Greg Abbott (R), likes to claim that his state government’s “Operation Lone Star,” a $10 billion-plus series of security-force deployments, imprisonments, and wall-building, is responsible for the drop in migrants coming to Texas. Abbott even alleges that Texas has pushed migrants to other states.

But did Texas see the largest drop in migration?

  • Since December, the answer is “yes, though not dramatically more.” Migrant apprehensions in Texas declined by 82 percent from December to June. But in Arizona, where Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) has not implemented any “Operation Lone Star”-like policies, apprehensions dropped by 70 percent. Both states, with their very different approaches, experienced declines greater than the border-wide average.
  • If one takes January—after Mexico’s crackdown began—as the baseline date, Arizona in fact declined more sharply than Texas. (52 percent to 40 percent.)
  • From May to June, Texas dropped 36 percent and Arizona 33 percent, a near tie.

From this, It’s really hard to conclude that Greg Abbott’s policies made a big difference. Arizona experienced similar declines without the hardline policies. The 2024 migration decline is a border-wide trend, not a Texas phenomenon.

We should be relieved that cruelty hasn’t paid any dividends.