January marked the third month with the fewest arrests of illegal immigrants in the Joe Biden era. The southern border is finally giving the president a break at the start of an election year. US authorities assure that arrests in January fell by half compared to the historic record set in December. The release of last month's numbers coincided with the start of the House impeachment trial of Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary whose duties include managing immigration.
In January, the Border Patrol arrested 124,220 immigrants. This is a 50% decrease from the 249,735 in the last month of 2023. December is the month with the highest number of irregular crossings on record. The border has become the issue of greatest concern to Republican voters ahead of November's presidential election. Some conservative politicians have turned border counties like Eagle Pass into a battleground against the Biden administration. Texas Governor Greg Abbott led a caravan of local leaders in support of his strict measures to reduce the flow of migrants.
Despite Abbott's dispute with Washington, Texas has not been the hottest spot on the border. The site was again in Tucson, Arizona, where 50,565 arrests were made, down 37% from December. The second largest point was the intersection between San Diego and Tijuana. However, in Eagle Pass, the number of arrests by federal agents fell 76% compared to December. 16,712 people were held there, the lowest number in two years. Something similar happened at the other end of Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, where the lowest number of crossings since July 2020 was documented.
This reprieve could be short for Biden. The government of Panama, one of the allies in Washington's efforts to reduce the number of migrants traveling north, has informed the Democratic administration that 36,000 people have traveled through the dangerous Darien jungle, a point that separates the north and the southern part of the USA connects the continent. That's 46% more than those who made the crossing in December.
The Darien is a busy place for citizens of Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, Colombia and China, a country whose migration flow has increased significantly in recent months. Venezuelans, on the other hand, have declined. Last month 4,422 people were arrested. However, almost 47,000 people were arrested in December.
Part of the reason for January's decline is due to efforts by the Mexican government. Mexican agents have stepped up surveillance of major airports as well as trains and buses in states near the borders with Guatemala and Belize. In late December, the Mexican Foreign Ministry announced an agreement with Caracas to repatriate Venezuelans. The first test flights took place on December 29th and 30th. By early January, the planes had returned 330 Venezuelans to their country.
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Mexican authorities have increased the number of flights departing from airports in the north of the country to cities in the south. At least 22 trips were made in the last days of December, reducing the number of foreigners waiting near the border for an opportunity to cross. Most of these routes started in Piedras Negras, the town in Coahuila that borders Eagle Pass. Several of these measures were implemented after Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Mexican authorities in December.
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