Far fewer people applying for asylum in #Mexico this year are from #Haiti, compared to last year. #Honduras is back in the number-1 position, followed by #Cuba.
April saw #Mexico's migration authorities apprehend their 5th-largest monthly number of migrants: 30,980 people.
US deportations of Mexicans into #Mexico are up. April deportations to the dangerous state of Tamaulipas (3,804) hit their highest level since November 2020.
Calling Rodolfo Hernández the “Trump of #Colombia” seems off to me. Here, I see more parallels with all-over-the-map populists like AMLO or Bukele. And if Hernández wins, US-Colombian relations could resemble current relations with Mexico or El Salvador…
…by which I mean: the Biden administration distances itself from the president and civilian leadership, even as it pursues the closest possible military-to-military relationship. Which isn't great.
(Of course, the "military-to-military relationship being stronger than the civilian relationship" thing is even more likely if Petro wins.)
Your workload is elevated if you work at a shelter, practice asylum law, or recover remains of migrants who've fallen off the border wall, drowned, or dehydrated.
Border Patrol agents, too, are busy processing asylum—a job that doesn't really require a uniform, gun, or badge.
Unless you work with protection-seeking migrants, it's business as usual in all US border towns I've visited (San Diego, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Laredo, McAllen, Brownsville).
Schools, supermarkets, restaurants, malls...open and normal. "Disaster zone" talk is politicized nonsense.
0/33 Here's a late-night thread about the border right now. This is me talking, not a deliberated WOLA consensus. I have blind spots—we all do—and welcome good-faith corrections.
tl;dr: Even today's high levels of family and asylum-seeking migration are manageable without drama.
1/33 Many Democrats, including those who support immigration reform, see images like this one and worry. They see themselves losing ground to the Greg Abbotts and Ted Cruzes. Even among Latino constituents who had voted reliably Democratic.
2/33 Why would they be losing ground among moderate voters who don't consider themselves anti-immigrant? Because these images look chaotic. They look disorderly.
When @VP Harris visits the US-Mexico border at El Paso on Friday, she'll be in a city with a rich, vibrant, experienced community of experts, advocates, and humanitarians. I hope she gets to talk with them.
Here are a few I've had the great pleasure to know. 1/11
.@LasAmericasIAC is an incredibly active organization that represents and offers affordable legal advice to asylum seekers, among other human rights advocacy. Many of its clients have been subject to "Remain in Mexico" and Title 42 expulsions. 2/11
.@HopeBorder carries out human rights advocacy from a Catholic social teaching perspective. It has played a key role in welcoming “Remain in Mexico” victims as they were allowed to enter El Paso. 3/11
Border Patrol's "encounters" with single adult migrants increased 12% from March to April. (This includes double counting because of repeat crossers.)
That's the largest March-to-April increase in adult migrants on this chart.
But wait: …
… Border Patrol's "encounters" with family and child migrants _decreased_ 10% from March to April.
That's the largest March-to-April drop in child and family migrants on this chart.
Here's all categories of migrants "encountered" at the border. A 2.5% overall increase from March to April.
(The average March-to-April percentage increase on this chart is 2.1%, excluding April 2020 which is anomalous because of the mid-March COVID closures.)