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How the US-Mexico Border Crisis Compare Today vs. 2019

2021-03-24T11:22:32.261Z


Fluctuations in migration flows are common regardless of which party is in power, as was evident in 2019 during the border crisis under then-President Donald Trump.


Expert: "Biden just made one major change" 1:01

(CNN) -

President Joe Biden is not the first US president to face a growing number of migrants at the border with Mexico, and he will not be the last.

Fluctuations in migration flows are common regardless of which party is in power, as was evident in 2019 during the border crisis under then-President Donald Trump.

It is difficult to compare the current situation with that of recent years due to drastically different circumstances, partly related to the pandemic.

Several factors are at play, including deteriorating conditions in Latin America, stifled demand to enter the US, and a perceived relaxation of law enforcement under Biden, which are driving migrants to the border into a pace that appears to be accelerated.

All this could lead 2021 to surpass 2019 in the number of people detained at the border.

Just over 100,000 people were found last month, 24,000 more than in February 2019.

And the number of unaccompanied children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in March is on track to surpass May 2019, the highest month of that year for arrests of minors, according to preliminary data reviewed by CNN.

Here's what you need to know about the situation at the border:

Is the border open?

Not at all.

The Biden administration relies on a public health law invoked by the Trump administration to swiftly evict migrants at the US-Mexico border, usually single adults and some families.

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In February, for example, most of the migrants found at the US-Mexico border were immediately returned, and some of them tried to cross again.

The numbers had started to climb steadily last summer.

Of the nearly 97,000 migrants who crossed the border illegally in February, about 70,100 were turned away, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Those numbers may reflect some people crossing multiple times.

If it weren't for that Trump-era policy, they would generally be prosecuted and in the custody of the United States.

That's similar to how the border was operating for the past year under Trump, except for one difference: Unaccompanied migrant children are not being expelled.

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This aerial photo, taken on March 15, shows a temporary processing center established by US Customs and Border Protection in Donna, Texas.

Attorneys who recently spoke with children at the facility say they are terrified, crying and worried that they will not be able to call their parents.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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Yaretsi, a 4-year-old girl from Honduras, sits on the lap of her mother, Angie, as she gazes out the window of a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle on March 15.

They had just crossed the Rio Grande on a raft.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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Migrant mothers from Central America hold their children while waiting for transportation After crossing from Mexico to La Joya, Texas, on March 14 Adrees Latif / Reuters

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Migrant families and unaccompanied minors from Central America take refuge in a makeshift processing center under the Anzalduas International Bridge in Granjeno, Texas, on March 12.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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Central American migrants await transportation in Penitas, Texas, on March 12.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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Unaccompanied minors are transported in a US Border Patrol vehicle after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States.

Authorities say the number of unaccompanied minors in the agency's custody has reached a record high.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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Traffickers use a raft to transport migrant families and children across the Rio Grande to Texas on March 6.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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Migrant families and children sit in the back of a police truck after crossing the Rio Grande on March 5.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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Migrants climb the banks of the Rio Grande toward the United States as traffickers on rafts prepare to return to Mexico on March 5.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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María, a 4-year-old girl from El Salvador, is held by her mother, Loudi, after they crossed the Rio Grande on March 5.

Adrees Latif / Reuters

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A boy watches from a tent in Tijuana, Mexico, on February 27.

He is camped out with other migrants from Central America waiting to cross the border and request asylum in the United States.

Jorge Duenes / Reuters

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Migrants from the Matamoros camp in Mexico arrive to cross the border bridge into the United States on February 26.

The camp was recently emptied after the Biden administration ended the Trump administration's migrant protection protocols, which forced many to wait in Mexico while their immigration cases made their way through US courts. César Rodríguez / Bloomberg / Getty Images

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A U.S. Border Patrol agent takes a young asylum seeker and his family to a bus station in Brownsville, Texas, on February 26.

US immigration authorities are now releasing many asylum-seeking families after detaining them while crossing the US-Mexico border.

Immigrant families are free to travel throughout the US while they await asylum hearings.

John Moore / Getty Images

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A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent checks the name of a migrant, as a group of at least 25 asylum seekers from a migrant camp in Mexico were allowed to travel to the United States on February 25.

The group was the first to be allowed to cross into South Texas as part of the Trump administration's repeal of migrant protection protocols.

Many of the asylum seekers had been waiting in a camp along the Rio Grande for more than a year.

John Moore / Getty Images

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Emma Moreno (right), a volunteer working at the Agape shelter in Tijuana, helps an asylum seeker verify the "Conecta" website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Conecta" allows asylum seekers who have been trapped in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols to enter the United States and await their asylum process there.

On the first day of launch, the website quickly became oversaturated when the estimated 25,000 people on the show tried to sign up.

Guillermo Arias / AFP / Getty Images

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A migrant girl from Brazil seeking asylum in the United States sits on a bench inside a shelter in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on February 19.

José Luis González / Reuters

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Asylum seekers wait outside the El Chaparral border port as they wait to cross into the United States from Tijuana on February 19.

The Biden administration is still turning away most migrants at the border, but officials are gradually allowing 25,000 people previously enrolled in the Migrant Protection Protocols program to enter Patrick T. Fallon / AFP / Getty Images

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Migrants seeking asylum in the United States carry empty water jugs at a camp in Matamoros, Mexico, on February 18.Daniel Becerril / Reuters

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Migrants cross the Rio Grande River to reach El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on February 5.

Henrika Martínez / AFP / Getty Images

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Teddy bears belonging to migrant girls are seen in the Rio Grande on February 5 after the girls applied for asylum in El Paso.

José Luis González / Reuters

The Biden administration, in the case of children, reversed the process as it was pre-pandemic, accepting unaccompanied children in the US and transferring them to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, which is in charge of their care.

"With children, we are seeing something unique that is bigger than what we have seen before," said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

"With adults we are also seeing larger numbers than in recent years, but they are not entering."

MIRA

: Honduran migrants leave for the US: they have more hope in Biden's new policies than in the future within their country

When was the last border crisis and how serious was it?

In 2019, the Trump administration faced large numbers of families and children arriving at the southern border of the United States.

During fiscal year 2019, the Border Patrol arrested more than 473,000 migrant families and about 76,000 unaccompanied migrant children.

The flow of migrants exceeded government resources, causing overcrowding at Border Patrol facilities and, in some cases, children were seen sleeping on the ground.

The highest number of arrests overall was recorded in May 2019: 144,000.

How does 2019 compare to 2021 for kids?

As for unaccompanied minors, the number of minors arrested at the border in March will likely easily exceed the peak recorded in May 2019, when around 11,400 unaccompanied minors were arrested, according to preliminary government data that CNN has reviewed.

The trend is unmistakable.

In February, more than 9,200 unaccompanied children were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol at the U.S.-Mexico border, up from 5,694 in January, according to the latest available CBP statistics.

In May 2019, at the height of that crisis, the United States Border Patrol arrested 11,475 unaccompanied children.

In February of that year, he arrested 6,817 unaccompanied children.

We are still early in the year, which is why the accelerating rate of arrests is so concerning.

Seasonal trends tell us that the numbers increase in spring and summer.

How does 2019 compare to 2021 for adults and families?

As for families, this year's figures are not what they were in 2019, but they could go up.

"Two weeks ago I would have said this was nothing like 2019. The fact that a high percentage of families are now admitted means that we are likely to see an exponential increase in families crossing over," Selee said.

Families from Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries are sent back to Mexico unless Mexico does not have the capacity to receive them, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement this month.

In other words, if Mexico does not accept them, they are processed in the US.

That change can travel by word of mouth and result in more families at the border.

Look inside the migrant detention facility 1:19

Why do people go to the US?

The pandemic has taken a dramatic toll in Latin America, where COVID-19 cases and deaths have skyrocketed and economies that were once projected to grow have been decimated.

The region was also affected by two devastating hurricanes.

Declining economic growth in 2020, according to the Congressional Research Service, is expected to worsen income inequality and poverty in the region.

That, combined with repressed lawsuits and the perception that the Biden administration is more lenient, has fueled migration.

Trump-era policies that prohibited people from going to the United States also contributed to more people waiting in Mexico to go to the United States.

In addition to turning away migrants during the pandemic, the Trump administration had pushed non-Mexican asylum seekers to Mexico until their hearing date in the United States, leaving tens of thousands languishing in poor condition in Mexico.

“We have had just over a year (of Migrant Protection Protocols), two years, and then Title 42 and that created a real anomaly in the sense that we had hundreds of thousands of people prepared in Mexico ready to come: Central Americans, ”said John Sandweg, a former senior National Security official under the Obama administration.

"I think that is playing an important role and is artificially increasing the numbers."

Why are children, in particular, crossing alone?

There are many different reasons why migrant children travel to the United States alone.

Years of CNN reporting on the border and conversations with experts reveal a common thread: It is not a decision that any family makes lightly.

Many of these children, whom the government calls "unaccompanied minors," request asylum when they arrive because they are fleeing persecution, gang violence and other forms of organized crime.

The dire economic circumstances in their home countries can also contribute to their decisions to leave.

Some parents initially make the trip with their children, encouraged by misleading statements smugglers use to lure them onto the trek.

But families sometimes find themselves making different decisions once they arrive in northern Mexico and come to understand the realities of the border.

In 2019, for example, some parents began sending their children to the other side of the border alone after they realized that the United States government was subjecting families to a Trump-era policy that required them to stay in Mexico, but not children traveling alone.

Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, an organization that works with unaccompanied children, said that some children who are now crossing had been returned to Mexico under Trump.

LEE

: The Border Patrol has detained more unaccompanied immigrant minors so far in March than in all of February, preliminary data shows

What happens after migrant children arrive?

Once the children are in the custody of the Border Patrol, they are turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is responsible for the care of migrant children.

HHS oversees a wide network of shelters where these children are placed until they can be relocated with sponsors, such as a parent or other relative, to the United States.

But it has had little space after operating with limited capacity as a result of the pandemic.

Over the past week, HHS has opened or announced new facilities, equipped for children, to begin housing children crossing the southern US border, and has moved to expedited delivery of some children to sponsors.

There are about 11,300 children in the custody of HHS.

According to Homeland Security, in more than 80% of cases, the child has a relative in the United States.

Once reunited, the children continue with their immigration procedures, in which an immigration judge finally decides if they can remain in the country.

CNN's Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.

Mexico-US border.

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-03-24

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