AUSTIN, Texas — The number of unaccompanied migrant children found crossing the border from Mexico has dropped to historic lows, and experts are at a loss to explain why.
In each of the first few days of the new year, only several dozen children have been encountered by federal law enforcement at the border compared to the 300-500 per day in the weeks leading up to Christmas and most of 2021.
“There has been no significant policy or operational change that would explain this decline at this time,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, managing director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank in Washington, D.C.
Customs and Border Protection personnel encountered 55 children who crossed the border without a parent or guardian on Sunday. Sixty-eight children were taken into custody on Monday and 81 on Tuesday.
The previous week’s daily encounters ranged from 145 to 168, which is one-third to half of the number seen nearly every day since March.
“The decisions [for parents to send their children across the border] are made weeks ago,” said Brown. “It could be people coming in before Christmas trying to get in to see parents or other relatives before Christmas. … Are you going to send your kid north over the holidays or spend the holiday with them and send them after? That could be it.”
MORE FENTANYL THAN HEROIN STOPPED AT BORDER LAST YEAR FOR FIRST TIME EVER
Spikes in the omicron variant of the coronavirus in Mexico may also play a smaller role in why fewer children are arriving at the border, as it could prompt fewer parents to send their children to be smuggled north or affect the operations of human smuggling rings.
“It’s also possible that the new wave of COVID infections is contributing to a slowdown in high levels of migration. Vaccination rates are still quite uneven across Central America, and there is reporting that Guatemala will begin to require proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter the country,” Jessica Bolter, a U.S. immigration policy analyst at Migration Policy Institute, wrote in an email Wednesday. “So people may be waiting to see how this wave will play out and whether entry requirements will change.”
One key in determining why child arrivals dropped off would be whether other migrant groups, such as families and adults, were also coming across in dramatically lower numbers. If so, it would indicate the holiday was likely a factor in the decline, Bolter said.
Both Bolter and Brown said explaining the short-term trends would be easier to make sense of in a month or several months when a more established trend can be determined.
If families are waiting until after the holidays to send children over the border, it could lead to an increase in arrivals in the coming weeks, Brown said.
After taking office in January 2021, Biden administration officials told migrants not to cross the border at that time. The administration also chose to stop turning away children who showed up alone at the border despite it being protocol under a pandemic public health policy meant to prevent holding facilities from being crowded with people. Following the decision to end child expulsions, more children showed up at the southern border than at any time in U.S. history.
In total, 146,925 unaccompanied children were encountered at the southern border, between the ports, and at the ports of entry in fiscal 2021, which ended in September of last year, according to CBP data. The 146,925 nearly doubled the record set in 2019, when 80,000 children came to the border.
Biden initially explained the uptick in illegal migration this spring as “seasonal.” But the numbers continued to spike through the summer months, when fewer migrants have historically been apprehended at the border because the heat acts as a deterrent.
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All children encountered are transferred from CBP to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement. The U.S. government will then search for a family member or adult in the United States whom the child can be released to live with.
