Why has illegal immigration skyrocketed over the past few years? Steven Camarota provides a common explanation:
Once it became clear that the administration was not going to detain people, send them home quickly, or require them to wait in Mexico, the number of people coming to the border skyrocketed.
Here are total border encounters over the past few years:
I understand that this topic has long since become so politicized that no one cares about a fair interpretation of the actual data. Immigration hawks will look at this chart and say that the surge at the border began the instant Joe Biden won the election, but does that really make any sense? Are migrants from Latin America so tuned into US politics that they started surging to the border based solely on some vague campaign promises?
It's possible, I guess. But nothing actually changed on Election Day and very little changed even after Biden took office. It wasn't until June 2021 that Biden tried to halt the Remain in Mexico program, his first significant border action.
It seems most likely to me that Biden's policies began having an effect after perhaps six months in office. But by that point illegal immigration had already reached more than 200,000 per month and has stayed at roughly that level for the past couple of years.
I don't have a big axe to grind over this. Maybe it really was campaign promises that caused the huge surge. It just doesn't seem very likely. What seems much more likely is that the immigration surge began under Donald Trump and border policies both before and after Biden's election have had little effect. The surge had other causes.
But what were those causes? I confess that's mysterious. My best guess is that it was mostly a thermostatic response to a desperate demand for more workers at a time when the illegal immigrant population had been declining for years. But that's just a guess.
Also, Republicans began announcing that if undocumented immigrants got across the border their states would pay for transportation to a Democratic city far from the border where they would get housing, food, and possibly jobs.
Seems like that's a pretty big inducement to migrants to risk the trip.
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While it wouldn’t be the magnitude of lead’s… there would be a lag after an election and encounters at the border. You wouldn’t start the journey such that you arrive while the previous administration was in charge. You would time it for when the next administration was in charge. And, there may be time to take to prepare.
And, many of these folks are on foot. Per one of the online maps, it is 25 days to walk from Managua to Texas. And that is constant walking, 24x7, which clearly is not going to happen.
If your decision to move to the US is decided by the administration in power, I wouldn't think you would start before the election outcome was definitely known.
Works for me, and add that the administration coming in won a tight race by campaigning (read- shouting from the rooftops) how awful the other administration treated folks at the border
So yeah if I'm considering leaving my gang ruled city, I'm on my way as soon as the smoke clears from the Jan 6 vote
What blows me away is either none of Biden's advisors warned him or he ignored them that, like covid was of T, immigration would be a huge issue for B.
Socioeconomic conditions, natural disasters (hurricanes ETA and Iota), security concerns, and failed governance interacted across Central & South America and Mexico.
Mainly Republicans insisting that the border was open...
With title 42 still in place, until ordered to take it down, Biden was doing what Trump did--basically dump the immigrants back into Mexico where they could try again. In that case, "encounters" were not adding to the migrant crises in the US very much. Other measures Biden tried to take, continuations of Trump's policies (?), were struck down in court, which fed into the crisis.
could be a response to something going on at the local level in central/south america (which always seems to go from bad to worse)
as bad as covid was in the US, i'm guessing there were a lot more deaths south of the border (and i doubt their govt's keeps honest stats on that), along with disruptions in the food supply, etc.,
also, the reasoning could be that immigration will only get more difficult due to pressure from right wing media, so better get while the gettin's good
I think the framing is slightly off. What Biden did was bring US southern border policy back to where it was prior to Trump.
Separately, I think one needs to reconsider The Wall, in light of the increase in border apprehensions. The Wall does not replace good neighbors, wise foreign and immigration policies.
I know this is totally unthinkable, but perhaps the same administration that separated children from their families then gave them away to other families without keeping good paperwork on where they went so that family reunification is impossible in many cases ALSO lied about the number of encounters at the border to make Dear Orange Leader look good? Nah, that can't be it because as everyone knows, law enforcement agencies like CBP are full of honest decent people who would never lie about anything they do.
+1
Then why report the ramp-up in 2019?
Why report the ramp-up in 2019?
To create a false sense of crisis from which only the Dear Leader can protect God-fearing Americans!
Possible? Yes.
Likely?? Probably not.
Can we rule out the hypothesis that the Trump administration was cheating by minimizing the number of patrols, or decreasing the count in any other way? They certainly didn't want to publish high numbers, especially before the election.
Can we rule out a hypothesis that secretive connivers who have more money than God and a willingness to spend it in ways that benefit themselves, don't care a fig about law, and hate with the fire of a thousand suns any attempts to limit them in any way, could be working behind the scenes to encourage people to leave desperate situations in far-flung places and try their luck at our southern border? Working on their own or in concert with a political movement that is run by, and full of, secretive connivers whose entire modus operandi is rat-fucking?
A question rooted in conspiratorial suspicions, I grant. But is it really so impossible to imagine that malign domestic forces may be at work here too, taking advantage of the other factors behind migration of this kind?
Much described above is true. But what ALSO happened is that smart phones are now reaching even poor communities in Central America, Andean South America and Africa. On them, people who have very little and few prospects for betterment see folks driving Beemers and Ferraris in commercials and say "I want THAT!"
I usually agree with Kevin, but I'd agree more with you than Kevin on this. I agree that information flows fast these days. Misinformation flows even faster. Potential migrants would likely want to believe the new administration would be more lenient.
The first chart looks like the surge began just about the time covid became a real issue, in early 2020. That seems weird but it's clear that the numbers increased steadily through about the last nine months of Trump's term.
Has anyone asked the immigrants themselves why they decided to come?
+10
Yes. A lot of podcasts from almost every news source asks them. Strangely, I don't recall specifically what reason the latest groups of migrants gave. I think that is because the reasons are the same as they have been for 10+ years.
Usually they bring up bad economic conditions and violence. Often gangs trying to recruit their children. The only change I recall was some Venezuelans talking about things being so bad they couldn't buy food or other necessities. Other than that, it sounded like the same reasons they've always given. I have no idea why so many are coming now.
+20. For the life of me I cannot understand why so many otherwise intelligent people assume that its something to do with US policy rather than mostly to do with a deteriorating situation in the places these people are walking from.
Unlike Kevin's lead theory, which at least requires boning up on some facts, all you have to do is compare illegal immigration from Mexico 20 years or more ago to today. Why did illegal immigration from Mexico go down? NAFTA, not boarder policies.
and . . . has anyone asked them where they got the $3k - $?k per person the cartels charge for safe passage? If allowed in legally, might these otherwise model citizens be "beholding" to cartels when the marker gets called in???
Could be coyotes lying to people about campaign promises in order to drum up more people smuggling business. I have no clue how you would check that, however.
We Americans are always making the mistake of thinking everything that happens is about us. Instead of assuming that the reason for the surge lies here, why not look at what's happening in the places the migrants are leaving?
There is a lot going on elsewhere. Venezuela has been hemorrhaging population for years, and a fair amount come here.
Ortega has made it easy for migrants to fly into Venezuela, making money for Venezuela at the same time he makes huge headaches for the US immigration system. Now even African and Asian migrants have an easy way to head to the southern border! https://www.npr.org/2024/01/04/1222951949/how-nicaragua-is-weaponizing-immigration-to-the-u-s
Whatever the reason, the optics will harm Biden politically. Chart shows a jump from ~70,000 pre-Biden to ~210,000. In this case, the political optics are literally optics.
What a shame for a pres that got inflation and gas prices under control, to lose 2024 because of the Catch & Release program. Come on Joe, do you think anyone who endured that journey north, then released here, will show for his hearing if there is the slightest doubt of him losing.
I'm trying to remember what the change was, but I can't. I thought that Obama changed the criteria for asylum. I thought that the change made it easier to claim asylum on economic grounds and this increased the number of people making the claim.
The thing is, if it was just a finding by Obama then Trump could have reversed it, but there was no attempt to do that and no Republican ever brings it up. (Yes, I know the Rs like having the issue and so don't want to solve it, but I'd still expect them to bring it up.)
Does anyone else remember this change?
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