Drop in border encounters, though likely temporary, signals new pattern

Encounters between migrants and U.S. border authorities took a plunge last month, though few analysts expect a permanent reduction in regional migration.

According to border encounter numbers released Tuesday by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), encounters between ports of entry accounted for 98 percent of the reduction from December to January.

CBP reported 242,587 total encounters in January, down from 370,925 in December. Of those, 125,444 January encounters were recorded by the Border Patrol between ports of entry, compared to 251,173 in December; and 117,143 were registered by CBP at legal points of entry, compared to 119,752 such encounters in December.

The precipitous drop in Border Patrol encounters has a variety of causes, including increased immigration enforcement in Mexico following talks between the Biden administration and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and seasonal patterns that, over the past three years, have resulted in lower numbers each January.

But the most perplexing factor that affects monthly crossings is the interplay between rumors and information sharing among migrants, reactions to news stories about U.S. immigration policy and how smugglers use information and disinformation to channel their clientele.

“Some is seasonal — numbers in the Darien declined all fall. But that doesn’t explain why everybody insisted on crossing in December, leaving few left in January,” said Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America.

“That pattern gives more weight to the ‘rumors’ hypothesis. The false rumors that people had to cross before the end of the year because ‘the border was closing’ or ‘CBP One was ending.'”

The Biden administration has overseen two months with low numbers similar to January’s: President Biden’s first full month in office in February 2021 and the aftermath of the end of Title 42 in June.

Decreased encounters over those two months were generally interpreted as a “wait and see” reaction by smugglers adapting to new rules and political realities.

January’s lull, though, came as Senate border policy negotiations crashed and burned, leaving current border policy and legislation essentially intact.

“What’s different this time is that there were not, in fact, any changes,” said Isacson.

That stability was reflected in CBP’s Office of Field Operations numbers — the encounters at legal ports of entry — where migrants avail themselves of the Biden administration’s expanded legal pathways to entry.

Fewer Venezuelan migrants were encountered both at ports of entry and between; upticks in port-of-entry encounters with migrants from countries like Mexico and Haiti kept those encounters roughly at the same level as in December.

With the December rush, plus fewer migrants from South America crossing Panama’s Darién Gap over the fall and increased Mexican immigration law enforcement, the number of people clustering at Mexico’s northern border diminished somewhat.

The Biden administration’s legal pathways, though criticized by its users and political opponents alike, also seem to have imprinted more consistent behaviors in would-be migrants.

For instance, the administration’s expanded use of the CBP One mobile application to set up scheduled port of entry appointments has become part of the border ecosystem.

“They took another 45,000 appointments last month, same as the last half-year. Nowhere near enough to keep up with demand — wait times are now routinely more than 2-3 months in northern Mexico, so it’s become the ‘new metering.’ But the app itself is working, and people are bought into trying to use it,” said Isacson.