The Texas-Mexico portion of the border has continued to see migrant surges but newly released border numbers show migrant encounters fell by nearly half after record encounters in December.
US Homeland Security officials have attributed the decline in overall border crossings to ongoing high-level talks between the US and Mexico, which has doubled down on enforcement, but they caution that encounters historically drop in January before ticking up again.
Border arrests dropped by 50% in January, compared with December, according to newly released federal data.
Acting US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Troy Miller conceded that authorities still face hurdles on the border, saying in a statement this month: “We continue to experience serious challenges along our border which surpass the capacity of the immigration system.”
In January, US Border Patrol reported 124,220 encounters along the US-Mexico frontier. Notably, there was a significant drop in Venezuelans — nearly 11,600 compared with nearly 58,000 in December. Both the US and Mexico have restarted deportation flights to Venezuela.
In December, more than 302,000 migrant encounters were reported by US Customs and Border Protection. It was the highest number of encounters in at least 52 months. At the same time, there were 608 drug seizure events. It ranks as the lowest in 52 months.
Also back in December, U.S. officials met with the president of Mexico in an effort to strike a deal to limit the surge of migrants who reach the U.S. southwest border. President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador agreed to help. Mexico cleared out migrant encampments in Texas border cities.
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