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EXPLAINER: Is the US border with Mexico in crisis?

Migrant children are seen with adults as they wait in line to get a COVID-19 test before given travel instructions at a bus station, Wednesday, March 17, 2021, in Brownsville, Texas. A surge of migrants on the Southwest border has the Biden administration on the defensive. The head of Homeland Security acknowledged the severity of the problem Tuesday but insisted it's under control and said he won't revive a Trump-era practice of immediately expelling teens and children. An official says U.S. authorities encountered nearly double the number children traveling alone across the Mexican border in one day this week than on an average day last month. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) Migrant children are seen with adults as they wait in line to get a COVID-19 test before given travel instructions at a bus station, Wednesday, March 17, 2021, in Brownsville, Texas. A surge of migrants on the Southwest border has the Biden administration on the defensive. The head of Homeland Security acknowledged the severity of the problem Tuesday but insisted it's under control and said he won't revive a Trump-era practice of immediately expelling teens and children. An official says U.S. authorities encountered nearly double the number children traveling alone across the Mexican border in one day this week than on an average day last month. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

By Times Free Press Staff March 18, 2021 5 min read

SAN DIEGO (AP) – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday during a visit to El Paso, Texas, that, “It’s more than a crisis. This is human heartbreak.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday called the wave of migrants a difficult challenge but nothing new.

Spin and semantics aside, migration flows to the U.S. from Mexico are surging in a major way for the third time in seven years under Republican and Democratic presidents – and for similar reasons.

HOW HAVE FLOWS CHANGED SINCE JOE BIDEN BECAME PRESIDENT?

Border encounters – a widely-used but imperfect gauge that tells how many times U.S. authorities came across migrants – rose sharply during Donald Trump’s final months as president, from an unusually low 17,106 last April to 74,108 in December. Last month, encounters topped 100,000 for the first time since a four-month streak in 2019.

That’s only part of the picture, though. Who’s crossing is just as important a gauge as how many are making the attempt, if not even more.