August 9, 2024

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Developments

CBP has not yet published final numbers showing July’s sharp drop in migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border, a result of a Mexican government crackdown on in-transit migration and the Biden administration’s June 5 rule prohibiting most asylum access between border ports of entry. Some press coverage in the past 24 hours focuses on what the drop in migration looks like at the border right now.

At NBC News, Didi Martínez and Laura Strickler reported that populations have dropped by 60 percent or more at migrant shelters in border cities and in U.S. interior cities. The number of people waiting in makeshift encampments in Mexican border cities has also plummeted; this is in part because the Mexican government is systematically busing migrants to the country’s south, and in part because people using the CBP One app from Mexican territory to schedule port-of-entry appointments find that they can await their dates from elsewhere in Mexico.

• Didi Martinez, Laura Strickler, “‘Drastically Less’: The Number of Migrants in Border Towns and Some Big U.S. Cities Has Plunged” (NBC News, August 9, 2024).

At the Guardian, Justo Robles found that people are being sent back across the border into danger after fleeing threats. The article cites an August 7 report from six national and border-region organizations documenting U.S. border agents’ ignoring migrants’ claims of fear of return, and conveys concerns that the June asylum ban will lead more people to risk death migrating through borderland deserts.

A principal author of the August 7 report, Christina Asencio of Human Rights First, discussed its findings with Arizona Public Radio.

• Justo Robles, “Migrant Crossings Have Plunged After Biden’s Asylum Ban. But Top Democrats Are Asking: At What Price?” (The Guardian (Uk), August 9, 2024).
• Alisa Reznick, “Report: Border Officers in Arizona Are Turning Away Asylum Seekers Despite U.S. Law” (KJZZ Arizona, August 8, 2024).

At the Washington Examiner, Anna Giaritelli reported that migrant apprehensions are dropping close to the 1,500-per-day average threshold that, if maintained for 3 weeks, would trigger a suspension of the June 5 asylum ban. The ban would go back in effect if the average climbs back above 2,500 per day; July’s average was under 1,850 per day.

• Anna Giaritelli, “Biden Could Lift Border Executive Action That Helped Lower Migrant Crossings” (The Washington Examiner, August 9, 2024).

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an executive order requiring the state’s hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status. The governor’s goal appears to be to collect data about the cost of providing health care to undocumented people, which the state government would then cite in litigation against the Biden administration’s border and migration policies. Advocates fear that the measure will discourage people who need urgent medical care from seeking it.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “Texas Gov. Abbott Instructs Hospitals to Collect Data on Patients’ Immigration Status” (CBS News, August 8, 2024).
• Sandra Sanchez, “Abbott Orders Hospitals to Compile Patients’ Immigration Status” (Border Report, August 8, 2024).

San Diego-area human rights defense groups filed a complaint with DHS about a pattern of sexual abuse and neglect at ICE’s Otay Mesa immigrant detention facility, which is run by private contractor CoreCivic.

• Billal Rahman, “Us-Mexico Border Migrants Claim Sexual Assault by Detention Center Staff” (Newsweek, August 8, 2024).

In comments to reporters, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado warned that the Maduro regime’s theft of July 28 elections and subsequent repression will trigger sharply increased migration from a country that has already seen a quarter of its population flee. “If Maduro chooses to cling to power by force, we can only expect a migratory wave like we have never seen: three, four, five million Venezuelans in a very short time.”

• “Maria Corina Machado Advierte de Nueva Ola Migratoria en Venezuela Si Nicolas Maduro se Aferra al Cargo” (EFE, El Universo (Guayaquil Ecuador), August 8, 2024).

Of 2,025 “caravan” participants who have been walking from Mexico’s southern border since mid-July and are now camped in the southern state of Oaxaca, over a quarter (552) are unaccompanied minors, Oaxaca state officials told Milenio.

• Oscar Rodriguez, “Identifican a Mas de 500 Menores Migrantes en Caravana de Oaxaca” (Milenio (Mexico), August 8, 2024).

Citing an internal bulletin from Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector, the New York Post reported that two Mexican criminal groups, Los Salazar and Los Pelones, are attacking each other with drones armed with explosives in northern Sonora state, not far from the Arizona border.

• Jennie Taer, Josh Christenson, “Hundreds of Suspected Cartel Drones — Some Now With Explosives — Are Flying Near the Southern Border” (The New York Post, August 8, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

Of people arrested for fentanyl possession at U.S.-Mexico border ports of entry between 2019 and 2024, 80.2 percent (7,598 of 9,473) were U.S. citizens, according to Freedom of Information Act data obtained by David Bier of the Cato Institute. (Similarly, at a July 2023 House hearing, a CBP official noted that U.S. citizens made up 73.1 percent of fentanyl arrests during the first 8 months of fiscal 2023, with the remainder Mexican citizens who mostly had permission to cross the border.)

The data punctures the evidence-free argument, promoted by many U.S. politicians, that migration and fentanyl smuggling are tied. Bier’s analysis also presents reasons to doubt that new detection technologies at ports of entry would solve the United States’ fentanyl challenge.

• David J. Bier, “Us Citizens Were 80.2 Percent of Crossers With Fentanyl at Ports of Entry From 2019 to 2024” (The Cato Institute, August 8, 2024).

Newsweek covered an August 6 Border Network for Human Rights virtual event (follow the link to “5th Report from the Border” here) at which Texas-area human rights denounced troubling recent cases of Texas police and guardsmen abusing migrants and improperly using force along the borderline. (WOLA’s Adam Isacson, discussing federal forces’ behavior and rising migrant deaths, was among this event’s speakers.)

• Dan Gooding, “Human Rights Groups Allege Abuse Against Immigrants by Texas Border Force” (Newsweek, August 8, 2024).

On the Right

• Jason Hopkins, “‘Absolutely Not’: Retired Border Patrol Chief Says Kamala Harris Never Once Spoke With Him About Border Crisis” (Daily Caller, August 8, 2024).
• Samantha-Jo Roth, “Trump-Aligned Group Bashes Harris Over the Border in Ad Blitz Across Battleground States” (The Washington Examiner, August 8, 2024).