Border crossings dropped this year, but will voters care?

(TNND) — Southwest border crossings fell 14% this year, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection touting its increased enforcement.

Immigration is a huge issue in this election, which is less than two weeks away.

Nationwide migrant encounters in the last four years have totaled 10.8 million after totaling 3 million the four years prior.

Republicans accuse President Joe Biden’s administration of having open border policies leading to an influx of migrants.

Biden and his team accuse Republicans of playing politics with immigration instead of fixing it, tanking a bipartisan Senate immigration bill earlier this year.

Last December saw a record number of southwest border crossings, around 302,000.

We had 2.5 million southwest border encounters last fiscal year and 2.4 million the year before that.

We hadn’t seen over a million border crossings in any of the six years before the pandemic. Crossings were usually well under a million, though we did get to 977,509 in 2019.

FEWER BORDER CROSSINGS THIS YEAR

This week, Customs and Border Protection released September immigration figures to complete the picture for fiscal year 2024.

Southwest border crossings fell to 2.1 million in fiscal 2024.

“During Fiscal Year 2024, CBP significantly increased its enforcement efforts and realized a substantial decrease in southwest border encounters,” Troy A. Miller, senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, said in a Tuesday news release. “CBP continued to identify and respond to new threats posed by the transnational criminal organizations profiting from the exploitation of vulnerable people, taking unprecedented measures to dismantle and disrupt these operations. We have surged our enforcement efforts to further crack down on the smuggling of illicit opioids, including fentanyl, and implementing new measures to disrupt the supply chain of deadly narcotics.”

Customs and Border Protection said since Biden’s June proclamation on securing the border, it has seen more than a 55% decrease in encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border.

The number of individuals released by Border Patrol pending immigration court proceedings is down 80%.

And U.S. officials have removed or returned more than 160,000 migrants to over 145 countries since Biden’s executive actions in June.

“This action will help us to gain control of our border, restore order to the process,” Biden said when announcing his executive actions in June.

Biden said his actions would bar migrants who cross our southern border unlawfully from receiving asylum.

WHY IS IMMIGRATION LOWER?

David Bier, an immigration and border security expert at the Cato Institute, said Biden’s actions made a difference. But they certainly weren’t the only reason border crossings are down.

“The most important reason is the job market is not the same as it was in 2023 or 2022,” Bier said.

American jobs are a big draw to migrants, he said.

Our jobs market is still strong, but it’s showing signs of weakening. And Bier said that’s diminished the desire for some migrants to make the trek to the U.S.

RELATED STORY: Most Americans say immigrants do the jobs we don't want to do

In addition to the increased American border security, Mexico has also stepped up its immigration enforcement.

The Mexican crackdown started last December, and Bier said Mexico is now arresting about two and a half times more people than the U.S. Border Patrol.

“That is a substantial reduction in the flow that's going to reach Border Patrol and force them to have to deal with it,” he said.

Key to that is also what Mexico is doing with the immigrants it arrests, Bier said.

“They are taking people, arresting them in the north of Mexico, and driving them all the way back almost 1,000 miles into southern Mexico,” he said. “And (they’re) saying, ‘You got to wait here or go home.’ And that change has really slowed down the number of people who can make it to the U.S. border.”

Mexico wants to be on good terms with the U.S. for a lot of different reasons, he said. There’s trade, energy policy and the potential to receive foreign aid from the U.S. for doing that type of work.

“I also think it's not politically unpopular in Mexico to do this either,” Bier said. “Nobody's a fan of the cartels’ smuggling network.”

Ernesto Sagás, an expert in U.S. immigration policies who teaches at Colorado State University, said the downward trend in illegal border crossings is very clear. He said Biden’s tighter border policies and humanitarian parole for Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians have helped tamp down illegal border crossings.

Up to 30,000 people are admitted every month, opting for legal pathways, through the humanitarian parole program, he said.

But he also said the higher illegal border crossing figures from the last few years should be viewed with some context.

“There's a new nature to immigration since at least the pandemic,” Sagás said. “Used to be that people would run away from the Border Patrol. So, counting encounters was not a good measure of what is going on at the border. Right now, people run into the Border Patrol. They cross the river, they sit down, and they wait to be arrested. So, now it's more of a telltale sign of what is really going on in the border. Because most of these people are just coming into the U.S. to surrender into the arms of Border Patrol and then try to get political asylum.”

Migrants believe it’s easier to get asylum under the Biden administration, Sagás said.

Border Patrol agents who were in the business of chasing after immigrants are now being overwhelmed by people just surrendering to them.

And it can take four to five years for a migrant’s asylum claim to be fully processed, Sagás said.

IMMIGRATION & THE ELECTION

Will the lower border crossing figures matter to voters?

“Not really,” Sagás said. “It's kind of too late to move the needle.”

Peter Loge, the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, said voters are entrenched in their views of immigration. People have an idea of what immigration looks like in the U.S.

“A new set of numbers won't change that,” Loge said. “The idea is baked in. It's disconnected from data.”

For example, a lot of people who oppose current immigration policies say that more immigrants equal more crime.

“That is statistically incorrect,” Loge said. “That's never been the case.”

Sagás also said voters “live in very different echo chambers,” where partisan views diverge dramatically.

Sagás mentioned that 88% of former President Donald Trump’s supporters favor mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Just 27% of Vice President Kamala Harris’ supporters favor mass deportations.

Immigration is an “existential issue” for Trump supporters, Sagás said.

Loge said a lot of Americans don't really make data-based voting decisions on the issues.

“We vote on whether or not we feel like a candidate understands us, reflects our values, understands our challenges, and will bring our judgement or views to the White House,” he said.

But Bier said the election will matter to the flow of immigration into our country, at least in the short term.

“Many of the people are waiting to see the outcome of the election before they decide,” Bier said.

Whether Harris or Trump wins, Bier expects more border crossings in November and December.

If Harris wins, migrants might feel more at ease about finding a place in America.

If Trump wins, Bier said there could be a rush of migrants trying to get across the border while they still can.

He didn’t think migrants would be scared off by the threat of mass deportations.

Getting into the country is the most important part, he said.

“People know it's actually pretty easy to lose yourself in the United States,” Bier said.