Daily Border Links: May 20, 2024
Adam Isacson
Daily Border Links are following a sporadic publication schedule between May 3 and July 19. Regular daily updates will return on July 22.
Developments
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) confirmed that the body’s Democratic majority intends to bring the “Border Act” to a vote this week. The legislation incorporates provisions of a bill that failed in the Senate in early February after months of negotiations between Democrats and Republicans.
Of its many provisions, the most controversial is a mechanism that would shut down access to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border if daily migrant encounters exceed 4,000 or 5,000 per day.
This provision’s inclusion in the earlier bill, which also included Ukraine and Israel aid, was a large concession for Democrats, but Republicans still rejected it, echoing Donald Trump’s argument that it did not go far enough.
If the Border Act goes to a vote this week, it is unclear whether any Republicans will support it. But it would be the second time in three months that Senate Democrats go on the record supporting a historic rollback of threatened migrants’ right to seek asylum in the United States.
The White House and some leading Senate Democrats view the bill as a means to take the border issue away from Republicans during the election year by appearing “aggressive.” However, migrants’ rights advocates are urging Senate leaders not to take this step because of its potential for harm.
- “Sahil Kapur @Sahilkapur on Twitter” (Twitter, May 19, 2024).
- Daniel Trotta, “Schumer Says Us Senate Will Try Again to Pass Border Bill” (Reuters, Reuters, May 19, 2024).
- Mj Lee, Priscilla Alvarez, “White House and Democratic Lawmakers Plot Ways to Strengthen Their Hand on Border Security” (CNN, May 18, 2024).
Local media are reporting that a Honduran migrant died just south of the borderline between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez after being severely beaten. Other migrants allege that the victim’s assailants were members of the Texas National Guard, who prevented them from crossing to the U.S. side to turn themselves in to U.S. federal authorities.
If accurate, the incident would be the first time in decades that a U.S. soldier purposefully killed a civilian on U.S. soil.
- Liliana Torreso, “‘Pedimos Ayuda Pero No Nos Hicieron Caso’: Migrantes por Hondureno Asesinado en el Rio” (El Heraldo de Juarez (Mexico), May 17, 2024).
- Juan Carlos Ortega, “Migrante Hondureno Muere en la Frontera de ee.uu. Tras Ser Golpeado por Policias”(Prensa Libre (Guatemala), May 19, 2024).
After U.S. authorities sent another deportation flight to Haiti on May 16, UNHCR’s U.S. office urged them to refrain from doing that again while the Caribbean nation’s public security emergency persists.
- “Unhcr United States @Unhcrusa on Twitter” (Twitter, May 17, 2024).
Despite concerns about the Salvadoran security forces’ human rights record and democratic backsliding, the U.S. government has granted them drone equipment valued at $4.5 million, which “will be employed along the border regions to reinforce El Salvador’s security against illegal smuggling and migrant crossings,” EFE reported, citing a U.S. embassy statement. The recipient unit is the armed forces’ Sumpul Task Force, a unit that focuses primarily on borders.
- “Estados Unidos Dona Drones a el Salvador para Vigilar Los “Cruces Ilegales” de Migrantes” (EFE, Swissinfo.ch, May 18, 2024).
Of the nine sectors into which Border Patrol divides the U.S.-Mexico border, the two that have seen the most migration since January are Tucson, Arizona and San Diego, California. Both sectors have seen two weeks of declining migrant encounters, according to Twitter posts from their chiefs.
- “Adam Isacson @adam_wola on Twitter” (Twitter, May 20, 2024).
- Elliot Spagat, “The Latest Hot Spot for Illegal Border Crossings Is San Diego. But Routes Change Quickly”(Associated Press, Associated Press, May 17, 2024).
- Alexandra Mendoza, “Shifting Migrant Routes Make San Diego the New Hot Spot for Illegal Border Crossings” (The San Diego Union-Tribune, May 18, 2024).
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has been claiming that his state government’s border crackdown has reduced migration there and pushed it to states further west. In fact, though, Arizona—not Texas—has seen the steepest declines in migration since the record-setting month of December, according to data released last week by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Migrant encounters have in fact risen 5 percent in Texas since January as they declined 30 percent in Arizona.
- “Adam Isacson @adam_wola on Twitter” (Twitter, May 17, 2024).
“Historically, this sector had been number one in irregular migrants,” Andres Garcia, a Border Patrol spokesman in the agency’s Rio Grande Valley sector in south Texas, told a gathering of Latin American journalists. “Now we are down to number four. What is happening? It doesn’t depend on us, it depends on the ‘logistics’ on the Mexican side. I’m talking about the criminal organizations that move this traffic through other areas of the border.”
- Arturo Sanchez Jimenez, “Bajo Control de Carteles, el Flujo a Eu de Migrantes Irregulares: Border Patrol”(La Jornada (Mexico), May 19, 2024).
The presidents of Mexico and Guatemala met in the border-zone city of Tapachula, Chiapas, on May 17. Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Bernardo Arévalo agreed to deepen collaboration on border and migration management and to improve official border crossing infrastructure.
- “Mexico and Guatemala Strengthen Border Collaboration on Security and Human Mobility for the Wellbeing of Their Peoples” (Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores (Mexico), May 17, 2024).
- Edgar H. Clemente, “Mexican and Guatemalan Presidents Meet at Border to Discuss Migration, Security and Development” (Associated Press, Associated Press, May 17, 2024).
The director of Panama’s migration agency, Samira Gozaine, told the Associated Press that high costs and coordination challenges would make it impossible for incoming President-Elect José Raúl Mulino to carry out his campaign pledge to deport migrants passing through the treacherous Darién Gap region.
- Alma Solis, “Panama No Puede Hacer Deportaciones Masivas de Inmigrantes, Reconoce Funcionaria”(Associated Press, Associated Press, May 17, 2024).
CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating whether top Border Patrol officials, including Chief Jason Owens and Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Gloria Chavez, properly disclosed their contacts with Eduardo Garza, owner of a prominent Laredo-based customs brokerage company.
NBC News broke the story, adding to an earlier report that “Owens and Chavez are already under investigation by CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility for their contacts with [tequila maker Francisco Javier] González, who wanted to make a Border Patrol-branded tequila to celebrate the agency’s 100th anniversary this month.”
- Didi Martinez, Julia Ainsley, Laura Strickler, “Border Patrol Officials Who Partied With Tequila Mogul Are Also Under Investigation for Ties to Wealthy Border Businessman” (NBC News, May 17, 2024).
Analyses and Feature Stories
Since 2014, U.S. immigration courts have heard 1,047,134 asylum cases, and granted asylum or other deportation relief in 685,956 of them (66%), according to Syracuse University’s TRAC Immigration data project.
- “Two-Thirds of Court Asylum Applicants Found Legally Entitled to Remain” (TRAC Immigration, May 17, 2024).
Of the more than 500,000 Nicaraguan people who have migrated to the United States since a 2018 crackdown on dissent, many have not applied for asylum, leaving their documented status uncertain, the Inter-American Dialogue’s Manuel Orozco told the independent media outlet Confidencial.
- Carlos F. Chamorro, “Medio Millon de Migrantes Nicas Necesitan Asilo Politico en Ee. Uu.” (Confidencial (Nicaragua), May 20, 2024).