Border crossings aren't what they used to be
Border crossings aren't what they used to be
Historical context is important for understanding recent data from the southern border and their policy implications
Encounters between immigration enforcement officials and migrants near the southern border have declined early in 2024. Changes in border enforcement policy complicate year-over-year comparisons, but a similar decline happened in January and February of 2023, suggesting that seasonal factors may play an important role; more recent data show stable encounters in 2024 at a time when they rose in 2023, suggesting a possible “seasonally adjusted” decline this year. More broadly, encounters remain high by historical standards, but important details are different now. Apprehension rates are high, migrants are more likely to be released pending subsequent action related to their legal status, and migrants are arriving from and entering at a wider range of locations. This suggests that the number of people attempting to cross the border is likely lower, the labor supply impact of border crossings potentially greater, and the associated logistical challenges at the border more diffuse than they may appear at first glance.
Early 2024 drop in encounters likely seasonal, more recent data point to possible “seasonally adjusted” decline
The elevated number of migrants attempting to enter the United States at the southern border, largely to seek asylum, has been a highly salient political and economic issue in recent years. Public opinion polling from Gallup has found that Americans consider immigration the country’s most important problem. At the same time, economic analyses suggest that migrants have played an important role in population, labor force, and employment growth. Indeed, as the U.S. population ages, deaths will continue to rise relative to births, becoming more of a drag on population growth. Immigration will be increasingly responsible for population growth, and these migrants are currently responsible for a majority of in-migration. Consequently, any benefits that may be associated with reducing the number of migrants entering the United States could come at the cost of slower growth.
Immigration enforcement officials encountered about 33 percent fewer migrants near the southern border over the first two months of 2024 than they did over the last two months of 2023, on average. However, it is important to note that a similar decline happened at the beginning of 2023. The first two months of 2023 saw about 36 percent fewer encounters than the last two months of 2022. This “new-year dip” is also evident in 2022, though the magnitude was much smaller at just over 9 percent.
In both 2022 and 2023, encounters rose again in March and April. This has not yet occurred in 2024. If there has been a “seasonally adjusted” decline in encounters in 2024, it has come in these more recent months, when raw totals have been roughly flat but prior years’ data suggested they would surge again. Partial data for May suggest this pattern may continue. While limited data make it difficult to say how consistent these seasonal patterns are, the available data suggest another notable drop is likely in June, providing another opportunity to benchmark encounters in 2024 against clear patterns in prior years’ data.
The expulsion of migrants for ostensible public health reasons between early 2020 and mid-2023 also makes it difficult to understand recent short-term changes in data on encounters between immigration enforcement officials and migrants. Some migrants who otherwise might have been apprehended by Border Patrol agents or deemed inadmissible at ports of entry by Office of Field Operations personnel were instead immediately expelled without the opportunity to seek asylum.
The legal authority for these expulsions was found in public health law (Title 42 of the United States Code; the expulsion policy has generally been referred to as “Title 42”), which authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take certain steps to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.1 Migrants expelled under Title 42 faced no other legal penalty or consequence, unlike those expelled under standard processes. This created an incentive for initially unsuccessful migrants to attempt to enter the country repeatedly.
As a result, the expulsions category in the figure above likely contains some mix of encounters that otherwise would have been apprehensions or inadmissibles, repeated expulsions of the same people who otherwise would have made fewer attempts to enter the country, and potentially some encounters that would not have occurred or would have resulted in the migrant being allowed to remain in the country (e.g., being granted asylum) absent the policy. The relative prevalence of these possibilities is unknown and may vary over time, making it difficult to compare the post-Title 42 period to the period during which it was in effect.
Since it is unclear how many migrants would have been apprehended or deemed inadmissible in early 2023 in the absence of Title 42, it is also unclear how much more or less common those types of encounters have become in early 2024. June will also be the first month for which year-over-year comparisons will not be directly affected by Title 42 enforcement in 2023, making it easier to say how conditions have changed since last year.
Zooming out, however, recent monthly and even year-over-year changes in encounters have been relatively small compared to the difference between the number of encounters recorded since 2021 and the average number recorded over the decade preceding the pandemic. Clarifying whether recent months have seen a slight increase or a slight decrease in encounters would not meaningfully alter our assessment of the situation at the border, which needs to be understood in historical context.
Apprehensions are historically high; total border crossings probably not as much
In each of the last three completed fiscal years, the total number of migrants apprehended at the southern border (including expulsions under Title 42) has been greater than the highest single-year total between 1960, when data begin, and 2020.2 Excluding Title 42 expulsions, apprehensions in FY2023 were at the highest level since FY2000. But not all migrants who cross the border into the United States are apprehended (some “enter without inspection,” in immigration enforcement parlance), and the apprehension rate varies substantially over time.
From 2000 through 2011, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates suggest that about 39 percent of people attempting to cross the southern border were apprehended. By 2019, that share had increased to about 89 percent before falling off during the pandemic. As a result, counting encounters between immigration enforcement officials and migrants provides an inconsistent picture of how many people are attempting to cross the border.
Adding entries without inspection to apprehensions (and Title 42 expulsions during the relevant period) suggests that total border crossings are not as historically high as apprehensions, since the apprehension rate has been high by historical standards recently. Consider 2021, which at the time was the year with the most apprehensions on record. That year, DHS data suggest that nearly 72 percent of people crossing the border were apprehended (including Title 42 expulsions), while more than 650,000 people entered without inspection. That brings the total number of border crossings for the year to just over 2.3 million.
Rather than being the most border crossings on record, this total ranked eighth to that point since 2000 (the earliest year for which estimates of entries without inspection are available). Applying the 2021 apprehension rate to data for 2022 and 2023 suggests that, while high, those years are also not record-setting even since 2000. Using the average apprehension rate for 2000 through 2010 to impute entries without inspection prior to 2000 suggests several additional years in which total border crossing may have been higher than they are now, including periods in the late 1990s and mid-1980s.3
In contrast, the period between the Great Recession and the pandemic appears to have been a period of historically low border crossings. The average number of total border crossings seen annually from 2010 through 2019 was lower than the estimated total for any prior year since 1971. That a period of high border crossings would so abruptly follow a period of very low crossings is unique; prior periods of high crossings developed gradually or arose due to increases from what were then high levels of crossings.
Migrants are now more likely to be released if apprehended, potentially boosting labor supply
Between the beginning of FY2014 (when data begin) and the pandemic, only a small minority of migrants encountered by immigration enforcement officials were released pending subsequent action related to their legal status. The period surrounding a spike in apprehensions in early to mid-2019 provided the lone exception; for a few months, over 40 percent of apprehended migrants were released. As apprehensions declined after this period, the release rate returned to its usual low level, suggesting that limited detention capacity may have contributed to the decision to release a larger share of migrants.
Since post-pandemic migration began to surge in late 2020, the release rate has again increased, exceeding 79 percent in December 2023 and averaging 73 percent over the three months ending January 2024 (the most recent three months of data available).
Many released migrants are eligible to apply for work permits while their cases are pending. With release rates high or rising for more than three years, this population could be playing a meaningful role in the labor market. CBO estimates that net immigration by “other foreign nationals” (the category that includes people crossing the border without authorization) was 2.4 million people in FY2023. One analysis finds that these migrants could help explain the faster-than-expected payroll employment growth and discrepancies between employment surveys.
It is unclear, however, how quickly changes in the number of migrants entering the United States might translate into changes in labor supply. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which process applications for employment authorization documents, has recently been carrying a backlog of about 1.4 million applications. As a result, there could be some lag between an increase (or decrease) in the number of migrants and that change being felt in the labor market.
Migrants are coming from and to more places
Prior to the last decade or so, the overwhelming majority of people who crossed the southern border without authorization were Mexican citizens. Beginning around 2013, however, migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, the so-called “Northern Triangle” countries, began to travel through Mexico in order to cross the U.S. southern border. By 2014, the citizenship of people apprehended by Border Patrol was split about evenly between Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries, with all other countries minimally represented.
These countries saw migration increase early in the pandemic, and migration from other countries soon followed suit. After migration from Mexico and the Northern Triangle ramped up in 2020, Venezuela followed in 2021. Though other individual countries have been less represented in apprehensions data, there have been notable increases from more distant countries like China and India, and the rest of the world collectively has gone from ignorable to occasionally representing the largest share of migrants apprehended in a given month.
Migrants have also been arriving at more locations along the southern border in recent years than they did in previous periods of especially high migration. Prior to the current episode, a single Border Patrol region (sometimes called an “area of responsibility”) generally accounted for most apprehensions, with a second region sometimes standing out from the others in a distant second place. Now, however, several regions are seeing similarly elevated apprehensions, suggesting that while no single region is bearing the full brunt of high migration, many are facing incoming migration that exceeds what they had typically faced in the years prior to the pandemic.
This is a genuinely difficult situation for policy
Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of senators agreed to a set of border-related reforms that it hoped to pass alongside a foreign aid package. The border-related elements included hiring changes for immigration enforcement agencies, changes to the asylum process, and the creation of a new authority to “close the border” when the number of enforcement encounters with migrants exceeded certain thresholds. These reforms have not yet passed, and in some cases it is unclear how they would address the issues faced at the border.
It is natural to provide additional resources and personnel when data suggest that the border is overwhelmed with migrants. But data also suggest that existing resources are sufficient to apprehend a large share of migrants, even under challenging circumstances. To the extent that more resources would be helpful, the diffuse nature of migrants’ origins and destinations make it difficult to target. “Closing the border” would likely keep some migrants from entering the United States, but a large majority of migrants at the southern border are not crossing at ports of entry and already face a border that is legally closed. Those who might be prevented from entering by the new border closure authority would still be near the border and still face whatever problems led them to travel there in the first place. Adding detention capacity could keep migrants from participating in the U.S. economy, which seems to be a goal for some, but given the role migrants have played in increasing the labor force, this would come at a cost for growth. Asylum process improvements could be helpful, but they need to be considered in light of the moral and legal responsibilities countries have to be open to those seeking asylum.
The current situation at the border also highlights a broader immigration policy challenge the United States faces. Immigration is likely to be very important for growth moving forward, which the recovery from the pandemic recession has previewed. But currently, both the number and skill composition of arriving foreign nationals are determined largely by who happens to seek asylum rather than by deliberate and strategic policy choices. Moreover, the talents of many immigrants are less than fully deployed due to rules limiting their ability to work or change employers. Politics obviously makes action on immigration policy difficult, but economically meaningful missed opportunities abound.
That these expuslions continued through May 2023 despite the fact that community transmission of COVID-19 was obviously prevalent within the United States shortly after they were instituted casts doubt on their supposed public health-oriented motivations. The Biden administration attempted to end these expulsions somewhat earlier but was blocked by the Supreme Court until the broader COVID-19 public health emergency ended in May 2023.
Including Title 42 expulsions in this analysis makes sense because they are real interactions between migrants and immigration enforcement officials happening at the border, which is the ultimate object of interest here.
This approach to pre-2000 data is arguably conservative with respect to the number of entries without inspection it estimates. U.S. Border Patrol was a much smaller agency earlier in this period, with only about 4,000 agents on staff in the early 1990s vs. nearly 20,000 in 2019. For FY1960, the president’s budget estimated spending $16 million on the Border Patrol, which is equivalent to about 0.003 percent of 1960 GDP. For FY2023, the budget estimated Border Patrol would spend about $5.4 billion, equivalent to about 0.02 percent of 2023 GDP and about an order of magnitude larger in these terms than the 1960 figure. If apprehension rates were lower with fewer resources dedicated to policing the border, entries without inspection could be higher than the figures estimated here.