As the Trump team figures out how to reshape their campaign against a new candidate, one thing will likely remain the same: Their razor focus on the border and President Joe Biden’s record on it.
The number of migrants arriving at the Southern border have skyrocketed under the Biden administration for a lot of reasons — but that is a trend that has changed pretty dramatically in the last few months.
Last month, the number of migrants entering Arizona was the lowest it’s been in more than three years. It comes after the president’s move to limit asylum at the border earlier this summer. The Show spoke more about it with Danyelle Khmara with Arizona Public Media in Tucson.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Danyelle
DANYELLE KHMARA: Good morning. Great to be with you.
GILGER: Thanks for coming on. So tell us first what these numbers look like, like how big is this drop?
KHMARA: Yeah. So basically in Arizona's Tucson sector border patrol apprehended 22,400 migrants in June, which is about two-thirds the number of people that they apprehended in May, which is at its lowest point since February of 2021. And that is we're seeing similar numbers across the entire Southwest border, border patrol counters at the southern border between ports of entry were 29% lower in June than May if you look at the entire Southwest border.
GILGER: Right. So remind us what the president's executive order did that, that so drastically changed things at the border.
KHMARA: Yeah, so basically the executive order allowed for a change in the way that migrants are seeking asylum or are asking to be entered into immigration court to get a day court to ask a judge for asylum. When there are, is a seven day average that sees numbers of people above 2,500 people, the administration is essentially sending people either directly back to Mexico or sending them back to the country of origin, which they came from until that daily number 47-day average has fallen below 1,500, which it has not yet. As far as the latest data that we're seeing.
So not only are people finding it much harder to ask for asylum when they do cross unauthorized between a port of entry, there are also enhanced consequences. So most of those people are getting a minimum of a five-year ban before they are allowed to ask for asylum or come back into the country through any other means.
GILGER: Right. So how impactful has this been like, how many migrants seeking asylum have been turned away?
KHMARA: Yeah, so it's been quite impactful. Yeah, the administration has returned thousands of people since this went into effect. And just as an example of what I've been seeing on the ground, I was in Nogales Sonora a couple of weeks ago. And at that point, there was about 200 people a day that had crossed the border that had been quickly processed by border patrol and border officials and were just returned back to the port of entry on the southern side of the border.
And a lot of the shelters at that time were seeing a huge increase in people who had been returned, much higher numbers than they were seeing before this rule went into effect.
GILGER: So, on the southern side of the border, that's interesting. That's what we're seeing on the ground. Migrant aid groups and advocates have been highly critical of this decision. Is there any precedent for this? What could the results be?
KHMARA: Yeah, so that's accurate that groups that, that help migrants actually have taken this rule to court. And so we will see what happens with that in the near future. You know, one of the fears that people have aside from the fact that they say that that migrants are not being allowed to after an asylum claim which is protected under international treaties as well as domestic law.
But another thing they're worried about is that people will put themselves in even more dangerous situations to try and evade border patrol in order to get into the country without being detected, which potentially could lead people into situations where they, they are more likely to get lost in the desert and even more likely to die. So that, that's one of the fears.
GILGER: Right. Watching those numbers of people dying in the desert, you're also reporting Danielle that the type of migrants crossing the border has changed since may tell us how.
KHMARA: Yeah. So basically, I mean, the the type of migrant crossing the border has been changing for a couple of years now and it's, it's just becoming more and more apparent. One of the biggest changes is that a lot more families are coming and again, that has been a trend for a while but in recent months, it's been even more Mexican families. So families fleeing the southern states in Mexico for the most part due to increased levels of violence and, and increased levels of organized crime.
I go down to the border and talk to migrants at shelters on a regular basis and many of them have similar stories that they felt like their lives were in jeopardy. They were being threatened, their children were not safe. So a lot more families and a lot more families from Mexico.
