It is difficult to compare today’s situation with that of recent years because of drastically different circumstances, partly related to the pandemic. There are a number of factors at play – including deteriorating conditions in Latin America, the pent-up demand to enter the United States and a perception of relaxation of surveillance under Biden – that are taking migrants to the border at a pace that appears to be accelerating.
All of this could put 2021 on the road to overcoming 2019 in the number of people apprehended at the border. Just over 100,000 people were found last month, 24,000 more than in February 2019.
Is the border open?
Not exactly. The Biden government is relying on a public health law invoked by the Trump administration to quickly expel migrants who are found on the U.S. border with Mexico, usually single adults and some families.
In February, for example, most of the migrants found on the US-Mexico border were immediately rejected – and some of them tried to cross over again. The numbers started rising steadily last summer.
This is similar to how the border was operating last year under Trump, except for one difference – unaccompanied migrant children are not being expelled.
The Biden government, in the case of children, has returned to the process because it is a pre-pandemic – accepting unaccompanied children in the United States and transferring them to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services, which is in charge of their care.
“With children, we are seeing something unique that is bigger than what we saw before,” said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank. “With adults, we are also seeing higher numbers than in recent years, but they are not entering.”
When was the last crisis at the border and how bad was it?
In 2019, the Trump administration faced a large number of families and children coming to the southern border of the United States. During fiscal 2019, the Border Patrol arrested more than 473,000 migrant families and about 76,000 unaccompanied migrant children.
The flow of migrants has overwhelmed government resources, resulting in overcrowding at the Border Patrol facilities and, in some cases, children seen sleeping on the floor.
May 2019 saw the largest number of general seizures: 144,000.
How does 2019 compare to 2021 for children?
The trend is unmistakable. In February, more than 9,200 unaccompanied children were arrested by the US Border Patrol on the U.S.-Mexico border, compared to 5,694 in January, according to the latest available CBP statistics.
In May 2019, at the height of this crisis, 11,475 unaccompanied children were arrested by the United States border patrol. In February of that year, 6,817 unaccompanied children were arrested.
We are still at the beginning of the year, which is why the fast pace of arrests is so worrying. Seasonal trends tell us that the numbers increase in spring and summer.
How does 2019 compare to 2021 for adults and families?
With regard to families, this year’s figures are not the same as in 2019, but they may go up.
“I would have said two weeks ago that it was nothing like 2019. The fact that now a high percentage of families are being admitted means that we are likely to see an exponential increase in families passing by,” said Selee.
Families from Mexico and the countries of the Northern Triangle are sent back to Mexico, unless Mexico is unable to receive them, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement this month. In other words, if Mexico does not accept, they will be prosecuted in the USA.
This change could go by word of mouth and result in more families at the border.
Why are people coming to the USA?
This, combined with repressed demands and the perception that the Biden government is more lenient, fueled the migration.
Trump-era policies that prevented people from coming to the United States also contributed to more people waiting in Mexico to come to the United States.
In addition to refusing migrants during the pandemic, the Trump administration pushed non-Mexican asylum seekers to Mexico until its trial date in the United States, leaving tens of thousands languishing in poor condition in Mexico.
“We had just over a year of (Protocols for the Protection of Migrants), two years and then Title 42 and this created a real anomaly in the sense that we had hundreds of thousands of people staged in Mexico ready to come: Central Americans” said John Sandweg, a former senior Homeland Security official in the Obama administration. “I think this is playing a big role and artificially increasing the numbers.”
Why are children, in particular, crossing alone?
Many of these children, who the government calls “unaccompanied minors”, make asylum requests when they arrive because they are fleeing persecution, gang violence and other forms of organized crime. Adverse economic situations in their countries of origin can also contribute to their exit decisions.
In 2019, for example, some parents started sending children alone across the border when they realized that the U.S. government was subjecting families to a Trump-era policy that forced them to stay in Mexico, but not children traveling alone.
Wendy Young, president of Kids in Need of Defense, an organization that works with unaccompanied children, said that some children who are making the crossing have now been kicked back to Mexico under Trump.
What happens after migrant children arrive?
After the children are taken into custody by the Border Patrol, they are handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is in charge of caring for the migrant children.
HHS oversees a wide network of shelters where these children are placed until they can be relocated with sponsors, such as a parent or other relative, in the United States. But it is running out of space after operating with limited capacity as a result of the pandemic.
Last week, HHS opened or announced new facilities, equipped for children, to begin accommodating children crossing the southern border of the United States, and acted to quickly release some children to sponsors. There are approximately 11,300 children in HHS custody.
According to Homeland Security, in more than 80% of cases, the child has a family member in the United States. Once reunited, the children continue with immigration procedures, in which an immigration judge decides whether they can stay in the country.
CNN’s Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.