Several factors in growth of migrants
The claim: “We began seeing the increase in unaccompanied minors going back to last April 2020. This is not something that happened as a result of Joe Biden becoming president.” — U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-EL Paso. Politifact rating: Half true.
It’s accurate to say that the number of children traveling alone to the border has been increasing since last April, but her statement downplays the fact that February saw a record increase in unaccompanied minors encountered by Border Patrol agents.
Escobar also said these increases are not “a result of Joe Biden becoming president.” Experts say the pull factor created by Biden’s policy change to stop expulsions of minors is one of several factors driving the uptick in unaccompanied minors.
Discussion
Escobar joined CNN host Jake Tapper on March 14 to defend President Joe Biden’s response to the influx of unaccompanied children at the U.s.-mexico border and shift blame to the Trump administration.
The number of unaccompanied children encountered by the Border Patrol increased sharply earlier this year, from 5,858 in January to 9,457 in February — a 61 percent increase, according to federal data. It’s the largest one-month percentage increase since U.S. Customs and Border Protection began reporting the data in 2010.
“Is this a crisis?” Tapper asked Escobar.
“There is no doubt, Jake, that what we’re seeing today is an enormous challenge,” Escobar replied, adding that the uptick is a consequence of the Trump administration’s immigration policies that the Biden administration is “is working day and night” to amend.
“We saw the increases dating back almost a year. And this was during the Trump administration.”
Migration patterns are complex and driven by numerous factors beyond changes in U.S. immigration policy, experts say.
The first part of Escobar’s
statement is accurate: The number of unaccompanied minors encountered at the border has been increasing since April 2020. But this trend generally follows seasonal migration patterns. Migration numbers typically peak in the spring, usually in May, and decrease in the late summer.
But in 2020, the steady rise continued through the winter.
According to Art Arthur, a former immigration judge and a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for low immigration numbers, migration numbers across the board “fell off a cliff ” in late March 2020. That’s when the Trump administration activated Title 42, a provision of the 1944 Public Health and Safety Act that allows the Border Patrol to expel any migrant for health and safety reasons, in this case to limit the spread of COVID-19 into the U.S.
Since migration numbers bottomed out in April 2020 because of Title 42, the increases in migrant numbers throughout the remainder of 2020 returned monthly totals closer to average levels, Arthur said.
But that steady rise changed in February, when Customs and Border Protection reported the 61 percent uptick.
“It’s a bigger spike than we’ve seen in any February ever,” Arthur said.
That uptick occurred in the same month the Biden administration suspended Title 42 for unaccompanied children only, leaving it in place for all other categories of apprehended migrants, much to the chagrin of immigrant advocates.
The uptick in unaccompanied minors was recorded soon after that change was announced by the White House.
“I can’t identify a single other factor that would point to that,” Arthur said. “There’s no other variable other than that.”
While Arthur highlights the White House’s policy change as a pull factor that was a primary driver behind February’s uptick, other experts underscore the push factors driving migrants out of their origin countries.
Migrants and migrant children travel from their origin countries — primarily Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — to the southern U.S. border for a multitude of reasons: worsened economic conditions because of COVID-19, cartel violence, corruption, natural disasters, agricultural diseases or droughts, and, among others, the vagaries of U.S aid. These issues have factored into people’s migration decisions for decades.
One such push factor challenged the Central America region in November, when two Category 4 hurricanes struck Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala within a twoweek span. More than 200 people were killed, and millions were left in need of aid. The hurricanes exacerbated poverty and worsened access to clean water, giving an extra nudge to people considering northern migration.
“There are clearly push factors coming out of all those countries, regardless of what our policies are,” said Ruth Wasem, a professor of public policy at the University of Texas. And it’s hard to say that pull factors created by liberalized U.S. immigration policies are stronger than the push factors driving migrants away from their origin countries, she said.
To Wasem, it’s no surprise border authorities are reporting high numbers of unaccompanied minors after four years of austere immigration policies under the Trump administration, which revamped asylumseeking processes in many ways that reduced the number of asylum-seekers entering the U.S.
But the near closure of the U.s.-mexico border under Trump doesn’t mean that migrants stopped packing their bags for the U.S.
“Trump basically shut down our immigration system and ended the laws on the books,” Wasem said. “So there’s going to be a pent-up number of people that were waiting to come, or that were en route.”
There’s little doubt that migrants, and young children in particular, are being sent across the border inspired by Biden’s new immigration policies. But Wasem says the hope that Biden administration policies have inspired in migrants is hard to measure.
“Are people coming because the thought of Biden’s presidency gives them hope? That might be. But you can’t measure that,” she said.