African migration to U.S. soars

SAN DIEGO — The young men from Guinea had decided it was time to leave their impoverished homeland in West Africa. But instead of seeking a new life in Europe, where so many African migrants have settled, they set out for what has become a far safer bet of late: the United States.

“Getting into the United States is certain compared to European countries, and so I came,” said Sekuba Keita, 30, who was at a migrant center in San Diego on a recent afternoon after an odyssey that took him by plane to Turkey, Colombia, El Salvador and Nicaragua, then by land to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Keita, who spoke in French, was at a cellphone charging station at the center among dozens from Angola, Mauritania, Senegal and elsewhere who had made the same calculus.

While migrants from African nations still represent a small share of the people crossing the southern border, their numbers have been surging, as smuggling networks in the Americas open new markets and capitalize on intensifying anti-immigrant sentiment in some corners of Europe.

Historically, the number of migrants from Africa’s 54 countries has been so low U.S. authorities classified them as “other,” a category that has grown exponentially, driven recently, officials say, by fast-rising numbers from the continent.

According to government data obtained by The New York Times, the number of Africans apprehended at the southern border jumped to 58,462 in fiscal year 2023 from 13,406 in 2022. The top African countries in 2023 were Mauritania, at 15,263; Senegal, at 13,526; and Angola and Guinea, which each had more than 4,000.

Nonprofits that work on the border said the trend has continued, with both the absolute number and the share of migrants from Africa climbing in recent months as potential destinations in Europe narrow.

“You have countries that are less and less welcoming,” said Camille Le Coz, a senior policy analyst at Migration Policy Institute Europe. “When new routes open up, people are going to migrate because economic opportunities at home are insufficient.”

A record number of people are on the move worldwide, according to the United Nations, fleeing climate change, authoritarian states and economic instability.

Across the Atlantic, immigration has stirred concern in many countries. Right-leaning candidates with anti-immigration platforms prevailed in a few national elections last year, most recently in the Netherlands. France, Germany and Spain have struck deals with Tunisia and Morocco to intercept migrants who transit through them.

And on Dec. 20, the European Union signed a pact to facilitate the deportation of asylum-seekers and limit migration to the bloc.