Illegal transitions at the border of the US-mexico are reduced to the lowest level in decades. Once crossed shelters migrants are empty. Instead of heading north, people stranded in Mexico begin to return home in larger numbers.
The border is almost unrecognizable only a few years ago, when hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world have passed to the United States every month in the chaos scenes and reversal.
President Joseph R. Biden Jr., faced with lush public anger during the 2024 election campaign, tightened on asylum seekers and pushed Mexico to stay on the bay. At the end of its term, the border fell significantly and the illegal transitions fell to the lowest levels of its Presidency.
Now Mr. Trump has more drastically pushed out the flow of migrants, consolidating a strong turn in American policy measures that many critics, especially those on the left, have long considered politically incomparable, legally unsustainable and finally ineffective because they do not deal with the fundamental causes of migration.
“The whole migration paradigm changes,” said Eunice Rndón, coordinator of migrant programs, coalitions of Mexican advocacy groups. Citing a series of politics of Mr. Trump and his threats that target migrants, she added: “The families are terrified.”
Mr. Trump at the same time employs several hard tactics: stopping Asylum for an indefinite period of time for people seeking refuge in the United States across the southern border; Hunting troops and, perhaps equally crucial, scare border crossings; Wide publication of flights deportations in which migrants are Sent home in the shackles; and governments with strong weapons in Latin America- like Mexico – Do more to control migration.
A new approach gave some eye statistics.
In February, US border patrol said she had arrested 8.347 people trying to illegally cross the border, down from a record More than 225,000 concerns in December 2023.
These numbers have already decreased suddenly since the Bidel administration revealed its immigration limitations last year. In December, the final full moon, Mr. Biden, was in power, the border patrol arrested 47,330 migrants at the border of the US-Mexico.
With 1,527 migrants a day, it was the lowest daily average for any month throughout the Biden Presidency. But that was still five times more than number in February, the first full month after Mr. Trump assumed his duty.
If this trend is held all year long, migrant concerns in the United States could fall to the level of unprecedented since 1967, said Adam Isacson, a migration expert at the Washington Office in Latin America, a non -governmental organization.
There are signs that figures are still falling south in the region. The number of people trying to reach the United States through the Darién Gap-Zabranjanji land bridge that connects South America and Central America, which is the Barometer of Sad-Mexico-Mexico-it is 408 in February, which is a fall with more than 37,000 in the same month last year, according to the Panama Institute of Immigration Institute.
Shift is the cause of celebration among numbers that have been calling for more stricter restrictions for years.
Under Mr. Biden, “The White House leadership promoted a story of powerlessness when it comes to immigration,” said Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, former acting deputy minister of Homeland Security in the First Trump administration.
“Providing the border is easy if you have the will to do it,” said Mr. Cuccinelli, highlighting the falcon on immigration issues. “In the first Trump administration, Trump did not have the will to do so,” he claimed. “But now it does.”
Mr. Trump’s fastened attitude about migration is somehow extending the moves of Mr. Biden at the end of his term. Mr. Biden promoted less restrictive policies that swollen the number of migrants who entered the United States during his first three years in power.
But as an increase in the rise increased, Mr. Biden banned migrants asylum if they were illegally crossed and pressed the Mexican and Panaman governments to do more to suppress the flow of migrants, delivering to his successor a relatively calm the situation on the border.
The political mood in the United States also moved. Leaders who once advocated their cities as migrants’ shrines grow calmer in their resistance to Mr. Trump’s politics. And some democratic governors highlighted areas potential cooperation about the implementation of migration.
After assuming his duty in January, Mr. Trump was planning forward with his measures against immigration. They included the use of US military base in Guantánamo Bay on Cuba for Migrant Nationus; cracking of internet posts to exhaust and endanger potential migrants; and promise to revoke visas because foreign officials thought they would facilitate illegal immigration to the United States.
Still, warnings are full. A similar glow in migration at the beginning of Mr. Trump’s first term, although less abruptly than the current fall, proved to be temporary. Migration experts warn that sanctions and other measures aimed at Venezuela and Cuba, two large sources of migration, can worsen economic conditions in these countries and produce a new exodus.
The hug of Tariff Trump’s administration is also measured on larger economy in the region, which potentially enhances economic despair among poor families that have fought, which is the highest factor that affects migration. Uncertainty over tariffs could already push Mexico in recessionEconomists are afraid.
But the development on the Mexico field illustrates that migration dynamics change.
The recent mornings of hundreds of migrants stood in line under the bright sun outside the Refugee Agency Office in Mexico City, Comar.
Many have been in line since dawn, and others camped out of the building, sleeping on slogans or in the middle of an earthen road, hoping to increase their chances of meeting and starting asylum procedure.
“Obviously, staying here was not our plan,” said Peter Martínez, a migrant from Cuba, who said his appointment of asylum in the United States was canceled in January.
Asked if he planned to return to Cuba, given the fighting, he said: “Mexico can be dangerous and difficult, but this is still better than returning to our country.”
Many migrants, like Mr. Martínez, were stranded in Mexico and thought about moving to the United States. Some plan to put off their roles in Mexico, while others do everything they can to get home.
Number of migrants in Mexico seeking help to return to their countries rose Up to 2,862 in January and February, according to the International Migration Organization, Reuters reported.
A survey of more than 600 migrants in January by the International Rescue Committee also found that 44 percent of respondents who initially intended to reach the United States who have now planned to stay in Mexico.
“When people see that one door is excluded in front of them, another window opens,” said Rafael Velasquez García, a former head of the International Rescue Committee in Mexico.
This decision does not come without restriction, he said, including migrants face significant obstacles to get access to employment.
In other countries in the region of Migrants from Venezuela and other countries, they automatically receive humanitarian visas that allow them to seek jobs. But in Mexico, the only option of migrants is to ask for asylum, which can take months.
All this takes place before other hard measures advocated by Mr. Trump, like his vow, will drastically increase mass deportations. He also plans to call obscure US law, The Law on Aliens Enemies of 1798.In order to accelerate the deportations of unproven immigrants, while providing them with little or no procedure.
Migration experts say that the closest parallel with the current piercing date of the 1950s, when anger due to the influx of Mexican workers produced a “Wetback surgery”, a short-lived military-style offensive that was named from a snack used to describe Mexican border crossings and aimed at deported more than a million immigrants in Mexicans.
“You have to return to the Eisenhower administration to see something similar,” said Mr Isacson, a migration expert.
