Nearly 2.6 million migrant encounters occurred at the southwestern border in 2022.
That is an average of 215,000 every month, and new numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection report January encounters fell at one of the highest rates in 23 years.
Monthly encounters rose sharply at the border in early 2021 and have remained above 150,000 since.
December was the highest month on record with almost 250,000 migrant encounters.
The report in January showed the number of encounters fell almost 40% to 156,000. That is the third largest drop since the year 2000.
Encounters on the Arizona southern border also fell almost 40% in January.
The decline is almost entirely attributable to encounters with migrants classified as “others” by the USCBP; people not holding citizenship in the Central American countries of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador.
Those “other” encounters fell 65% in January compared to December. It was the first month since June that Central American migrant encounters were above those holding citizenship in the combined group of other countries.
In Arizona, the border is divided into two sectors - Yuma and Tucson.
In January, there were approximately 21,000 migrant encounters in the Tucson sector, while Yuma had nearly 11,000. Migrants from “other” countries consistently make up most encounters in Yuma and encounters in that area surpassed Tucson in December by almost 10,000.
However, in January, Yuma's encounters dropped by 64%, while Tucson's only fell 9%.
The data indicates the change is due to a drop in encounters in many of the countries targeted by the government’s newly implemented expanded parole program.
Cuban citizens were almost one in five encounters in December but the number fell under 4% in January. Peruvians dropped five points while Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans combined went from 5% to 1.5%.
