So if we game this out into April or May, where are we? 6-tweet 🧵:
https://twitter.com/adam_wola/status/1375068661543751681
The single adult migrant population continues a steady increase, but may be outpaced by family members.
Single adults are those who most often try to avoid capture. Many will perish in the desert as summer heat increases. Press coverage of this will continue to be spotty.
Single adults are those who most often try to avoid capture. Many will perish in the desert as summer heat increases. Press coverage of this will continue to be spotty.
As Mexico’s capacity to absorb expelled families is exceeded, parents/guardians will realize they stand a decent chance of avoiding expulsion, and will stop sending children across alone. The unaccompanied child population will stabilize, maybe decrease.
Family members’ numbers will rival or exceed what we saw in 2019. US pressure on Mexico to take more expelled Central American families will make only a modest difference.
As smuggling networks continue to benefit from corruption, Mexico’s "crackdowns" won't do much to prevent Border Patrol agents from tweeting daily photos of 100+ -person apprehensions, mostly members of families.
Reports of large numbers of family members released to seek asylum within the United States will spur right-wing calls to revive “Remain in Mexico.” But we should resist short-term fixes—especially cruel ones—since 8 years of data show they don’t reduce child/family migration.
Instead, the conversation must shift to how we adjust our asylum, processing, and alternatives-to-detention. It’s been 8 years since the profile of migrants at the border changed. Our laws say what to do, but we have the same exact backlogs and bottlenecks that we did in 2014.
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