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DEL RIO–Border arrests of migrants declined 14 percent in June over May, possibly reflecting the effectiveness of a U.S.-backed migration crackdown within Mexico.
The decrease comes as Republican politicians, led by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, ramp up rhetoric and spending at the border as rising numbers of migrants arrive. Human rights groups have said that migrants are subjected to growing abuses, particularly in the Mexican state across from Del Rio, a border city of about 36,000 in what’s now the busiest corridor on the U.S. border.
The Del Rio-Eagle Pass region here surpassed the Rio Grande Valley in June for the most arrests of migrants. It sits across from the Mexican state of Coahuila, where migrants say they have been targeted by authorities with assaults and extortions in border cities like Ciudad Acuña and Piedras Negras.
In June, the U.S. Border Patrol arrested about 192,000 migrants, compared with 224,000 in May, its parent agency U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in an announcement late Friday. The previous highest monthly number of migrants arrested, 223,000, were detained in March 2000, according to data from the Border Patrol.
But migrant arrests by CBP are on pace to exceed the record 1.7 million recorded in fiscal year 2021. In fact, with three months left in the fiscal year, migrants arrests by CBP have surpassed the number for all of 2021 by about 10,000.
Migration has made headlines repeatedly in Texas. Abbott, who is running for reelection, wants to keep the spotlight on border security and a crackdown known as Operation Lone Star. In June, 53 migrants died of asphyxiation and heat exposure in an 18-wheeler trailer abandoned in San Antonio as temperatures soared. The youngest victim was only 13 years old.
The head of the CBP, Commissioner Chris Magnus, issued a warning to migrants with the announcement Friday: “This is not an easy passage, the human smugglers only care about your money–not your life or the lives of your loved ones, and you will be placed in removal proceedings from the United States if you cross the border without legal authorization and are unable to establish a legal basis to remain.”
But Mexican human rights and shelter leaders are pushing back against the intensifying crackdown. They say it’s Mexican authorities — not just smugglers — who abuse migrants.
“The bigger the crackdown the more it opens the doors to authorities in Coahuila to abuse migrants,” said Alberto Xicotencatl Carrasco, director of Casa de Migrantes, one of several groups that advocate for migrants.
Authorities are removing migrants from trucks, and leaving them stranded on the highway, Xicotencatl said. One recent video shared by another advocacy group showed municipal police with migrants, including crying children, left on the highway confused and left to walk to the border on foot.
A June report by Human Rights First, called “The Nightmare Continues,” detailed abuses in this section of Coahuila-Texas border crossings. Dozens of asylum-seekers and migrants reported that state and local police had robbed, extorted, harassed, assaulted, and in two cases, kidnapped them. One Coahuila state police officer allegedly sexually groped a 12-year-old Honduran girl in Ciudad Acuña, across from Del Rio.
Behind the numbers
Javier Garza, a Mexican radio commentator, said Mexican border state officials are especially fearful of the Texas governor’s threat to increase inspections of trucks at the Texas border bridges. That would snarl and hurt Texas-Mexican trade again, as it did last April, he said.
“My sense is that officials in Coahuila don’t want to do anything to risk trade revenue from imports and exports and that is why they are going all out to slow migrants as much as they can,” he said.
Adam Isacson, a border security analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America, called the decline “remarkable.”
Isacson attributed the decrease to both the Mexican crackdown and the expectation in May that the pandemic-related public health order Title 42 was going to be lifted. Such a lifting would have made it easier for greater numbers of migrants and asylum-seekers to cross the border and fight for a right to stay in courts or before asylum officers. Its lifting is now caught up in litigation brought by Texas and other Republican-led states.
“May was Mexico’s fourth heaviest month ever in apprehensions,” Isacson said. “It is possible that it pushed [U.S. numbers] down a bit.”
In the U.S., around half of the migrants arrested, or 44 %, were processed and sent back under a public health order known as Title 42. Title 42 dates back to the administration of former President Donald Trump and began during the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Title 42 has now been used more than 2 million times to quickly expel migrants from the U.S. But because there are no legal consequences, many migrants and asylum-seekers cross again. In June, CBP officials said about a quarter of those encountered had tried before.
That legal fact inflates border arrests, immigration experts and the federal government have said. The number of arrests isn’t equal to the number of migrants.
There are some exemptions to Title 42 processing. Among them are unaccompanied migrant children traveling without a parent or legal guardian. Those numbers increased 4% in June, compared to May, for an average of about 752 children arriving daily.
Overall, Mexicans have led in the number of those caught by the Border Patrol this year, with large numbers from Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Colombia.
Raul, a 36-year-old Mexican immigrant who wouldn’t give his surname, stood outside a grocery store in Del Río. He was headed for the healthier economy of New Orleans to work, and already he had escaped Border Patrol detection, he said. “Mexico is in bad shape,” he said.