Nearly 19,000 children traveling alone were stopped at the Mexican border in March, smashing previous highs set during periods of heavy child migration in 2014 and 2019.
Is it a crisis? Spin and semantics aside, migration to the U.S. from Mexico is increasing in a major way for the third time in seven years under Republican and Democratic presidents – and for similar reasons.
HOW HAS MIGRATION 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. They soared during President Joe Biden’s first months in office. Encounters totaled more than 172,000 in March, up from about 100,000 the previous month and the highest since March 2001.
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.