Southern Border Apprehensions Down in FY2024

High numbers of undocumented immigrants apprehended at the Southern United States border have caused political tensions for several years. In the past fiscal year, numbers dropped significantly - by as much as 25 percent. Despite much debate, influence over how many migrants arrive at the border is limited and blocking off entry is tough. The outgoing Biden Administration aimed to strike a balance between enforcement and humanitarian policies, while it was fiercely attacked by the Trump campaign on the issue. Trump recently vowed to resume building the border wall - a project that had been quite unsuccessful in his first presidency.

As seen in numbers by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the fiscal year of 2019 saw a first spike in undocumented migrants apprehended at the Southern U.S. border, caused by arrivals from Central America. The fact that these migrants often travel in family units while fleeing from violence then gave rise to the infamous Trump-era policy of jailing undocumented immigrants while separating them from any children they might have been traveling with. Another Trump administration policy, dubbed Remain in Mexico, is in use until today after courts blocked its termination. It says that asylum seekers at the Southern border have to wait for their court date in Mexico instead of the United States.

After a break in the Covid year of 2020, the inflow of undocumented immigrants from Central America and beyond again drove numbers up once more, but immigration from Mexico also increased from pre-pandemic years - together creating an exceptional situation at the Southern border.

Historically, immigrants from Mexico made up the largest share of undocumented arrivals to the United States. The arrivals were mostly classified as work migrants, i.e. men arriving without their families at least initially. In the year 2000, Customs and Border Protection data shows that more than 1.64 million people - mostly Mexicans - were arrested at the border - the former all-time high. Immigration from Mexico started to decrease during the Great Recession as work was in short supply. It remained low in the following decade for reasons including the economy in Mexico doing better while the country shifted towards an aging population, which caused workers to be more sought after. While this development already flipped again in 2018, the coronavirus pandemic seems to have accelerated this reverse shift as more single adults attempt to leave Mexico for the United States once more.

The number of non-Mexicans apprehended at the border stood at more than 1 million in 2024. Out of these, around a third came from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, down from 80 percent in 2021 - showing the more diverse groups of migrants that have been arriving at the Southern border in the last fiscal year.