AUSTIN, Texas — The number of immigrants arrested attempting to enter the United States illegally from Mexico in El Paso has dropped precipitously since the week leading up to Christmas.
The more than 15,000 people who were apprehended and taken into custody by the Border Patrol in the third week of December dropped by nearly two-thirds to less than 5,500 in the second week of January, according to city data available to the public.
In return, the number of immigrants in federal custody has declined, as well as the number of people released by the government onto the streets of El Paso.
The 10,349 immigrants let out of custody and permitted to remain in the U.S. through court proceedings for illegally entering the country plummeted to 152 releases between just before Christmas to now.
MAYORKAS ORDERED INTERNAL REVIEW OF MASSIVE IMMIGRATION CONTRACT, EMAILS REVEAL
Since President Joe Biden’s second full month in office, total monthly encounters of immigrants have remained between 150,000 and 285,000 per month — significantly higher than the fewer than 50,000 monthly average seen in the decade leading up to 2021. Illegal crossing attempts rise and fall along the border as cartels and immigrants shift to new spots for a variety of reasons.
The slowdown in El Paso could mean that other parts of the 2,000-mile southern border are seeing more attempts to cross or that other areas outside downtown El Paso are being exploited given federal, state, and local law enforcement’s focus on this one area.
Immigration analysts and federal law enforcement pointed to several reasons for the sharp downturn. One major factor was Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) mid-December decision to surge in 700 National Guard members, as well as more Department of Public Safety officers.
“After rising dramatically in December, there are several reasons why illegal entries in El Paso have fallen in recent weeks,” said Ken Oliver, the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s senior director of engagement and Right on Immigration initiative in Washington. “Expanded Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety assets in the area played a role by helping to divert and put additional pressure on human and drug smuggling.”
The Biden administration’s recent policy changes that mandate citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela seek asylum through a government phone app in order to be considered for admission to the U.S. were also a reason for the decline in apprehensions at the border, according to Oliver.
Rodney Scott, the Border Patrol’s previous leader, said fighting in Mexico among the transnational criminal organizations that smuggle people over the border has affected their normal operations as they fight for control over parts of the border.
“My sources within [the Department of Homeland Security] believe that the primary reason that illegal cross-border traffic has slowed in El Paso is because of the cartel wars that have ramped up recently,” said Scott, TPPF senior distinguished fellow for border security, in a statement. “Simply put, the cartels that control this area are currently preoccupied with fighting each other and Mexican government forces for survival and control.”
Oliver agreed that the escalation in fighting among Mexican cartels was a driving force for the slowdown.
“The cartels that control the area are more enmeshed in fighting each other and Mexican government forces than they were several weeks ago,” Oliver said. “So we’re seeing more migrants biding their time on the Mexican side of the border until they think they can cross more safely.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency that oversees the Border Patrol, has not yet published data for apprehensions in the month of December or the first few weeks of January.
A senior Border Patrol official at its Washington headquarters said Tuesday that the numbers in El Paso “really dropped since National Guard put up wire,” referring to the concertina wire that soldiers placed in stacks along the Rio Grande to funnel anyone who did immigrate illegally to certain places to ensure they were apprehended and could not abscond.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Del Rio continues to be busy. They are still getting large groups daily,” the Border Patrol official wrote in an email. Del Rio, located in south central Texas, has seen the most illegal immigrant apprehensions in the two years that Biden has been in office.
The Rio Grande Valley along Texas’s Gulf Coast and Yuma in western Arizona have also remained top regions for arrests, said the official.
