Why Illegal Border Crossings Are at Sustained Highs (2024)

FAQs

Is there a border crisis? ›

There is a crisis on America's border with Mexico. The number of people arriving there has skyrocketed in the years since the pandemic, when crossings fell drastically.

More than 10,000 migrants per day, mostly asylum seekers, have been arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. ​​Border Patrol sectors seeing the most arrivals are Del Rio and El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; and San Diego, California. Some of the rush is likely the product of false rumors and misinformation.

In 2014, the US declared a crisis at the border due to an influx of unaccompanied minors and women making their way through checkpoints.

The situation is dynamic. However, the main countries migrants are coming from today are Venezuela, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

The number began to rise in 2018, largely driven by Central Americans fleeing a series of complex crises including gang violence, poverty, political repression and natural disasters. Detentions fell again in the summer of 2019, which US officials credited to increased enforcement by Mexico and Guatemala.

His Administration has deployed the most agents and officers ever to address the situation at the Southern border, seized record levels of illicit fentanyl at our ports of entry, and brought together world leaders on a framework to deal with changing migration patterns that are impacting the entire Western Hemisphere.

Since 1965, about half of U.S. immigrants have come from Latin America, with about a quarter from Mexico alone. About another quarter have come from Asia. Large numbers have come from China, India, the Philippines, Central America and the Caribbean.

They are flocking to cities but also to rural areas with significant work in the meat packing and agriculture industries that traditionally employ large numbers of migrants. To be sure, the data isn't perfect, relying on the addresses the migrants provide to US officials who are managing their immigration court cases.

The law governing U.S. immigration policy is called the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The INA allows the United States to grant up to 675,000 permanent immigrant visas each year across various visa categories.

Mexico does deport American citizens who are in the country illegally, according to government data and Rafael Fernández de Castro, Ph. D., the director of UC San Diego's Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. But “the deportation of American citizens is not that common,” Fernández de Castro said.

Why are so many people leaving Mexico? ›

On average, immigrants came from more advantageous background as the cost of migration limited poorer individuals from migrating. Economic inequality, rural poverty, significantly lower wages, and better opportunities have also played a role throughout the 20th century as factors pulling Mexicans to migrate to the US.

How serious is the situation at the border? A sizable majority of Americans (78%) say the large number of migrants seeking to enter this country at the U.S.-Mexico border is either a crisis (45%) or a major problem (32%), according to the Pew Research Center survey, conducted Jan. 16-21, 2024, among 5,140 adults.

Since 2015, more than 7 million Venezuelans have emigrated due to ongoing economic and political turmoil. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, the Venezuelan exodus – representing a quarter of Venezuela's population – is the world's second-largest refugee crisis.

Joining Missouri in standing with Texas are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and the Arizona State ...

Some are fleeing increased violence or political upheaval. Others seek jobs and economic opportunities, in the wake of profound economic dislocations caused by COVID-19, natural disasters, and economic stagnation. There are few lawful paths into the country for migrants driven by those factors.

Since 2022, New York City has absorbed more than 170,000 migrants, mostly sent on buses by Texas officials from the US-Mexico border. Many of them are asylum-seekers who hail from South American countries facing political and economic upheaval, like Venezuela and El Salvador.

In February 2024, the Biden administration officially surpassed a shocking nine million border crossings nationwide, not including the more than 1.8 million gotaways. Read previous “Startling Stats” factsheets at homeland.house.gov/border-startling-stats.

Filling these open jobs could have increased U.S. Gross Domestic Product by over $2.5 trillion. Going forward, these unfilled job openings will cost the U.S. economy over half a trillion dollars per year. These jobs will not be filled without immigrants, as the U.S. prime age employment rate is at a near record high.