August 20, 2024

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Developments

As the Democratic Party’s convention launched in Chicago, its platform, published Monday, includes language calling for changes in the law curtailing asylum access at the border during busy times, as is currently happening under the Biden administration’s June 4 asylum rule. Under a section entitled “Temporary Emergency Authority to Shut Down the Border,” the platform—a non-binding document—suggests:

When the system is overwhelmed, the President should have emergency authority to expel migrants who are crossing unlawfully and stop processing asylum claims except for those using a safe and orderly process at Ports of Entry. The authority should be accompanied by humanitarian exceptions for vulnerable populations including unaccompanied children and victims of trafficking.

In remarks to the Convention on Monday evening, President Biden hailed the drop in migration that took place in the first weeks after the asylum-restriction rule went into effect:

Then I had to take executive action. The result of the executive action I took: border encounters have dropped over 50%. In fact, there are fewer border crossings today than when Donald Trump left office. And unlike Trump, we will not demonize immigrants, saying they’re the poison of the blood of America, poison the blood of our country.

A look at the Border Patrol sectors that report weekly data points to this initial drop in migration leveling off by mid-July; Border Patrol apprehensions have been largely flat since then.

• “‘24 Democratic Party Platform” (Democratic Party, August 19, 2024).
• “Watch and Read Joe Biden’s Full Speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention” (Time, August 19, 2024).

Panama today will begin deporting some migrants aboard U.S.-funded deportation flights after they exit the treacherous Darién Gap jungle route from Colombia.

The U.S. government has reportedly allocated $6 million to support those flights. Assuming $500 per deportee, that would be enough to remove 12,000 people, equivalent to 6 percent of the migrant population in the Darién region during the first half of 2024.

At least the initial flights will go from Panama to Colombia, the country from which migrants entered. As Colombians are only about 6 percent of migrants passing through the Darién, most of those aboard the planes will probably be citizens of other countries, mainly Venezuela (65 percent of Darién migrants).

• Vanessa Buschschluter, “Panama Starts Returning Migrants on Us-Funded Flights” (BBC (UK), August 20, 2024).

Analyzing Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) recently released data about Border Patrol apprehensions reveals that despite heavy investment in its “Operation Lone Star” crackdown, Texas has not experienced steeper migration declines than Arizona, where the Democratic governor has not pursued similar hard-line measures.

• Between the record-setting month of December 2023 and July, Border Patrol apprehensions in Texas fell 86 percent. However, they fell 84 percent in Arizona and 77 percent border-wide.
• Between January and July, Arizona’s Border Patrol apprehensions fell 74 percent, more than Texas’ 53 percent or the border-wide decline of 55 percent.
• Between May and July, Arizona also leads with a 64 percent drop in Border Patrol apprehensions, well ahead of Texas’s 50 percent drop and a border-wide drop of 52 percent.
• For the second time in the 2024 calendar year, Texas in July led all states in Border Patrol apprehensions.

These data are derived from CBP’s reporting of “U.S. Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations Encounters by State,” subtracting Laredo and El Paso Field Office port-of-entry encounters from Texas, Tucson Field Office port-of-entry encounters from Arizona, and San Diego Field Office port-of-entry encounters from California. (A small number of New Mexico port of entry encounters gets subtracted from Texas, as they fall under the El Paso Field Office; this makes Texas’s decline look slightly steeper than it is.)

• “Illegal Immigration Into Texas Down 87% According to Abbott’s Border Advisor” (WOAI (San Antonio Texas), August 19, 2024).
• Sandra Sanchez, “Migrant Encounters in Rgv Sector Plummeted in July, Cbp Reports” (Border Report, August 19, 2024).
• Salvador Rivera, “San Diego Sector Sees Border Arrests Fall 40% in July” (Border Report, August 19, 2024).

A boy from southern Mexico seeking to migrate to the United States was killed, and eight people from Ecuador, Africa, and Mexico were wounded, when assailants opened fire on the vehicle in which they were traveling in Mexico’s border state of Sonora, across from Arizona. The attack may have been related to violent competition between migrant smugglers.

• “1 Migrant Killed and 8 Wounded in a Shooting in Mexico South of the Arizona Border” (Associated Press, Associated Press, August 19, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Migrant rights activist Abraham Monarez told Ciudad Juárez’s Norte that the number of migrants in the Mexican border city has plummeted because of the Mexican government’s operations to remove migrants to the southern part of the country, and because people find they can seek CBP One appointments from elsewhere in Mexico. Many who come to Juárez are staying in hotels instead of shelters, Monarez said. “Now, when they get their appointment at CBP, that’s when they move” north from places further south, like Mexico City.

• Hugo Chavez, “Migrantes Dejan de Llegar Aqui por Mejoras en cbp1 y la Deportacion Si Intentan Cruzar: Activista” (Norte (Ciudad Juarez Mexico), August 19, 2024).

“As Colombians try to settle down in Denver, they often feel overlooked” amid a larger number of asylum seekers from Venezuela who have received more attention from service providers, the Denver Post reported.

• Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, “After Making the Journey From Colombia, Some Migrants “Feel Left Out” of Resources for Venezuelans in Denver” (The Denver Post, August 20, 2024).

On the Right

• Chad Wolf, “Kamala Harris Is the Architect of ‘America Last’ Border Policies” (Fox News, August 19, 2024).
• Collin Pruett, “Harris Was Never in Charge of the Border” (The American Conservative, August 20, 2024).
• Bethany Blankley, “Texas Triples Razor Wire Barriers, Continues Building Border Wall” (The Center Square, August 19, 2024).