Irregular crossings of US-Mexico border fall by half after December’s record high

Non-authorized crossings by people into the United States along the US-Mexico border have dropped by more than 50% compared with record high crossings in December 2023, according to a new report citing federal statistics.

According to the US border patrol, agents recorded a daily average of 3,700 apprehensions of migrants along the border in the first 21 days of May, a 54% decrease compared with daily average of 8,000 in December, CBS reported late on Thursday, with the TV channel saying it obtained internal government data.

May is on track to be the third consecutive month of declining border crossings, with senior US officials attributing the decline to Mexican authorities cracking down on US-bound migrants. The figures buck a seasonal trend, with spring usually seeing a rise in crossings.

The US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, praised the reductions, in an interview with CBS News on Thursday, citing a “number of actions that we have taken, not only strengthening our enforcement, not only attacking the smugglers, but also building lawful pathways that enable people who qualify for relief to reach the United States in a safe, orderly and legal way”.

Related: At the US’s latest border hotspot, aid workers brace for volatility

According to human rights officials, Mexican authorities are detaining migrants before they reach the US border and bussing them south, sometimes as far as the Mexican border with Guatemala.

“López Obrador has been very willing to trade the rights of migrants and asylum seekers for political capital in Washington,” Ari Sawyer, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told the Guardian, referring to Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, earlier this year.

The reported decline in migrant crossings comes as immigration has become a heated political issue among Republicans and Democrats during the 2024 presidential election year. Joe Biden has recently proposedchanges to asylum procedures in an attempt to appease both parties.

The focus on immigration along the border is expected to create more instability throughout the election year as humanitarian aid groups for migrants have noted financial support has taken a hit due to the enflamed political rhetoric.

“The philanthropic funding, I think due to a lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from both sides of the aisle, has really dried up,” said Erika Pinheiro, the executive director of Al Otro Lado, which provides supplies for open-air migrant detention sites.

Voters have cited immigration as one of the most pressing issues this election year, with xenophobic fears of an immigration crisis spreading to regions of the US far removed from the US border with Mexico, and facing very little exposure to immigration, as well as factors such as aggressive enforcement taken on by Texas in defiance of federal government jurisdiction.

“We don’t see immigrants here but I have relatives all over the country and they see them,” Jim Schuh, the manager of a local bakery in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, told the Guardian earlier this month.

Senate Republicans, for the second time on 23 May, blocked a bipartisan border security bill, in a 43-50 vote, falling far short of the 60-vote threshold required to advance the legislation. Four Democrats and two independents voted against the bill.

Biden criticized Republicans and used the blocking of the bill to deflect criticism on immigration from the right toward Republicans.

“Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system,” Biden said in a statement. “If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history.”

The Republican senator James Lankford defended the bipartisan border security bill he co-authored from criticisms by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, but voted against the bill over claims the second vote was an effort for Democrats to score “political points”.