September 3, 2024

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Developments

Even as recent months’ migrant encounters have been declining in the United States, Panama, and Honduras, Mexico’s government released data showing that July 2024 was its 5th busiest month ever: 116,626 encounters with undocumented migrants. In the seven months since January 2024, when Mexico launched a crackdown on migration transiting the country, its reported monthly encounters have ranged between 113,839 (January) and 125,499 (May). Before this year, Mexico’s all-time monthly record was 97,969 (November 2023) and it never exceeded 70,000 apprehensions before July 2023.

In July 2024, for the first time, Mexico’s reported migrant encounters exceeded the United States’ encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border (116,626 compared to 104,116), combining Border Patrol apprehensions and CBP’s encounters at ports of entry, including CBP One appointments.

• “2024 Boletín estadístico mensual” (Unidad de Política Migratoria, Secretaría de Gobernación de México, consulted September 2, 2024).

Following the Mexican government’s announced plan to transport people with “CBP One” appointments safely to the U.S. border, 100 people with confirmed dates at U.S. ports of entry lined up outside a migration facility in Tapachula, Chiapas. One man from Guatemala told EFE that he managed to secure an appointment in only four days; a recently published quarterly report from the University of Texas’s Strauss Center found that wait times for some are stretching to eight or nine months. A woman from Honduras told EFE that she began attempting to apply for an appointment last December.

• “Migrantes del Sur de Mexico Tramitan ‘Cbp One’ para Ir a Eu” (EFE, Milenio (Mexico), September 2, 2024).

Recent news about organized-crime violence in Mexico’s northern border states includes cattle ranchers telling the governor of Sonora that they feel unprotected and often unable to travel on the state’s roads; the forced displacement of hundreds of Indigenous people from Chihuahua’s Sierra Tarahumara; and a shootout and jewelry store robbery in a Ciudad Juárez shopping mall, in the same part of the city as the U.S. Consulate.

• Francisco Sandoval, “Ganaderos Exigen un Alto a la Inseguridad en Caminos y Carreteras de Sonora; ‘se Esta Viendo Mucho Abandono de los Ranchos’, Dice Titular de Ugrs” (Proyecto Puente (Mexico), September 2, 2024).
• “Ataques Armados y Desplazamiento Forzado en Comunidades de la Sierra Tarahumara de Chihuahua” (Red TDT (Mexico), Monday, September 2, 2024).
• “Versión: reportan balacera dentro de centro comercial Plaza Juárez Mall” (Norte de Ciudad Juárez, September 1, 2024).

Analyses and Feature Stories

UNHCR surveys of 560 travel groups at Costa Rica’s northern border with Nicaragua during the first half of 2024 found 74 percent of respondents were from Venezuela, and 84 percent of them hoped to migrate to the United States. 92 percent said they left their countries of origin due to “lack of employment or income,” 79 percent cited fear of violence or insecurity.

At Costa Rica’s southern border with Panama, 82 percent of respondents had departed from Venezuela, 87 percent hoped to migrate to the United States, 83 percent left their countries of origin due to “lack of employment or income,” and 39 percent cited fear of violence or insecurity.

• “Costa Rica – Northern Region: Field Office Upala Factsheet – August 2024 (EN)” (UN Refugee Agency, September 2, 2024).
• “Costa Rica – South Region: Field Unit Ciudad Neily Factsheet – June 2024 (En)” (UN Refugee Agency, September 2, 2024).

On the Right

• Phillip Linderman, “Prm: The Obscure State Department Bureau That Fosters Global Illegal Migration” (The American Conservative, September 3, 2024).