Inside Trump’s Extraordinary Turnaround on Immigration Raids

2025/06/16 Leave a comment

Another TACO moment, forced by reality and resulting political pressure by the base:

On Wednesday morning, President Trump took a call from Brooke Rollins, his secretary of agriculture, who relayed a growing sense of alarm from the heartland.

Farmers and agriculture groups, she said, were increasingly uneasy about his immigration crackdown. Federal agents had begun to aggressively target work sites in recent weeks, with the goal of sharply bolstering the number of arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Farmers rely on immigrants to work long hours, Ms. Rollins said. She told the president that farm groups had been warning her that their employees would stop showing up to work out of fear, potentially crippling the agricultural industry.

She wasn’t the first person to try to get this message through to the president, nor was it the first time she had spoken to him about it. But the president was persuaded.

The next morning, he posted a message on his social media platform, Truth Social, that took an uncharacteristically softer tone toward the very immigrants he has spent much of his political career demonizing. Immigrants in the farming and hospitality industries are “very good, long time workers,” he said. “Changes are coming.”

Some influential Trump donors who learned about the post began reaching out to people in the White House, urging Mr. Trump to include the restaurant sector in any directive to spare undocumented workers from enforcement.

Inside the West Wing, top White House officials were caught off guard — and furious at Ms. Rollins. Many of Mr. Trump’s top aides, particularly Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, have urged a hard-line approach, targeting all immigrants without legal status to fulfill the president’s promise of the biggest deportation campaign in American history.

But the decision had been made. Later on Thursday, a senior official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Tatum King, sent an email to regional leaders at the agency informing them of new guidance. Agents were to “hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels.”…

Source: Inside Trump’s Extraordinary Turnaround on Immigration Raids

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Canada is making it harder for immigrants to help build much-needed homes — despite the construction industry’s growing reliance on them

2025/06/16 Leave a comment

Of note:

…Recognizing the need for migrant workers, the federal government in 2024 exempted the construction sector, along with agriculture and health care, from new restrictions that limit most employers to hiring a maximum of 10 per cent of their workforce through the low-wage temporary foreign worker program.

The exempt industries employ the largest number of temporary foreign workers.

In March, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada under then minister Marc Miller announced that up to 6,000 undocumented construction workers would be given a pathway to gain legal status in Canada, acknowledging that “these undocumented migrants are already living and working in Canada, and are contributing to the sector.”

This announcement came more than two years after the federal government said it would be expanding a small-scale pilot project that offered permanent residence for out-of-status construction workers already working in the sector.

In a statement, the immigration department acknowledged “there are undocumented migrants already living and working in Canada” contributing to the construction sector. It added that “creating a pathway for them to be here legally would ensure that they can continue to work and support Canada’s labour market needs, such as building the homes our communities need.”

Asked whether the pathway is being implemented, the department said the government is still “considering potential approaches to support Canada’s construction industry.”

While migrant workers and newcomers have become essential to keeping construction sites running, they are also disproportionately assigned the most precarious, low-paid and hazardous jobs in the sector. These roles often come with the highest rates of injury and the least protection.

Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), said immigrants will often end up in “informal trades, more of what you call menial tasks,” typically unlicensed jobs assisting other trades. These include work in concrete, tile, bricklaying, stonework, drywalling and painting….

Source: Canada is making it harder for immigrants to help build much-needed homes — despite the construction industry’s growing reliance on them

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Todd: Canada’s giant immigration industry will have to get used to ‘intense’ public debate

2025/06/16 Leave a comment

Not sure whether I would use the word “intense” but yes, greater debate, discussion and questioning part of a needed new normal. As I have repeatedly emphasized, debate need not be xenophobic or racist as the concerns relate to issues that affect all, immigrant and non-immigrant alike: housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

When I was asked to address members of the immigration division of the Canadian Bar Association, I expected an audience of maybe 25 to 50 lawyers.

But last Saturday, 400 immigration lawyers showed up at the Victoria Convention Centre to hear what three Canadian journalists and a think-tank member had to say about the media’s impact on migration.

The panel was asked to address immigration lawyers’ fears that heightened media coverage is “sparking intense public debate” and influencing “how immigrants are perceived and how decisions are made.”

In addition to offering our thoughts, panel members learned there are actually more than 1,200 immigration lawyers in the Canadian Bar Association, with their numbers mushrooming in the past 15 years.

I noted there are another 13,000 licensed immigration consultants in Canada, a doubling in just seven years. The lawyers in Victoria let us know, justifiably, that the “consultants” are not as highly trained as lawyers, or as regulated.

On top of these private players employed in the migration sector, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has doubled its staff in a decade to more than 13,000 employees.

Altogether, these professionals and workers add up to an army of more than 27,000 immigration specialists (about the same as the number of soldiers and staff employed by Canada’s Department of Defence).

All make their living helping migrants navigate the complexities of becoming a foreign student, temporary worker, reunified family member, investor immigrant or permanent resident of Canada.

In addition, the C.D. Howe Institute maintains another huge cohort that does somewhat the same thing. Unlicensed agents — from the fields of travel, education and labour — also take fees for advising clients on how to get into Canada and stay there.

The institute’s Tingting Zhang and Parisa Mahboubi, therefore, maintain there should be many more licensed consultants — and that the government should offer better aid to the roughly six million people whose applications are each year processed for entry into Canada.

In other words, the 400 lawyers who gathered last week at the Victoria Conference Centre represented just a fragment of the immigration business in Canada. No wonder it’s called one of the country’s biggest industries.

Understandably, the gathered immigration lawyers, the slight majority of whom were women, wanted to do everything they could to help the clients in Canada and around the world who come to them.

Their questions and comments all revolved around the hope that borders be more open and the often-labyrinthine migration process easier.

They also worried about declining support for immigration. A Leger poll this spring found 58 per cent of Canadians believe migration rates are “too high”. Even half of those who have been in the country less than a decade feel that way.

Given the lawyers’ desire to assist their clients, many were wary that in the past two years more journalists have been digging into migration policy and its impact.

That’s in large part because former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doubled immigration levels and increased the number of guest workers and foreign students by five times. Almost three million non-permanent residents now comprise 7.3 per cent of the population, up from 1.4 per cent in 2015.

The lawyers noted that, after decades in which journalists essentially avoided migration issues, many more articles were being written about such topics as the sudden jump in asylum seekers, tens of thousands of international students not attending school, businesses exploiting temporary workers and population pressures on housing and rents.

Two panelists, Toronto Star immigration reporter Nicholas Keung and Steve D’Souza of CBC’s Fifth Estate, emphasized the value of talking to migrants to develop poignant “human interest” stories. They have also investigated how bosses, fly-by-night colleges and some migrants have taken part in scams.

In response to CBA’s concerns that Canada’s media were producing “stories that have become a lightning rod for public sentiment, shaping how immigrants are perceived and how decisions are made,” the journalists on the panel explained it’s our duty to cover migration stories, and all stories, in a way that is “fair, balanced and accurate.”

Although panelist Daniel Bernhard, of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, correctly said that some journalism about migration is superficial, I suggested it’s generally a good thing Canada’s long-standing national taboo against reporting on and debating migration policy has eased.

Although some politicians, migration lawyers, consultants and other agents may not always like it, I also said journalists’ goal is to responsibly probe to the truth of a matter and, beyond that, to “let the chips fall where they may.”

Since my Vancouver Sun editors about a dozen years ago asked me to produce more analyses about migration, I have learned covering the beat essentially amounts to writing about the “winners and losers” of migration policy, which in Canada is put together behind closed doors.

Some examples. Applied ethicists point to how it’s one thing for Canadians to worry about a “brain drain” — about losing talented citizens to places like the U.S. and Singapore. The more worrisome flip side, for countries in Africa and East Asia, is that Canada is actively draining away their brainy people, be they physicians or entrepreneurs.

Then there are the 2.8 million temporary workers in Canada, many of them international students paying exorbitant school fees. Some have been winners, getting solid educations and decent jobs in their homelands or permanent residency in Canada. Others have been exploited for their willingness to work for low wages — which has, in turn, been a losing proposition for other low-skill workers in Canada.

The job of tracking migration policies’ winners and losers is endless, including covering the squeeze that rapid population growth and the trans-national migration of foreign capital is putting on those trying to pay Canadian housing costs and rents.

Suffice it to say, journalists’ job is to shine as much light as possible on this vast system, which impacts millions. The ultimate goal is to encourage the creation of policies that best serve the most people, which is one way to advance the common good.

Source: Canada’s giant immigration industry will have to get used to ‘intense’ public debate

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Rioux: Une odeur de guerre civile

2025/06/14 Leave a comment

Mix of both side-ism and overly rigid perspective of “strong-borderism:”

….Certes, à 18 mois des élections de mi-mandat, l’envoi des gardes nationaux et des marines pour mater les émeutiers relève probablement d’un calcul politique. Mais le gouverneur de la Californie, Gavin Newsom, n’est pas non plus dénué d’ambition à un moment où les démocrates se cherchent un sauveur. Rappelons aussi que les rafles sauvages de la police de l’immigration (ICE) sont en partie dues au refus de la Ville de Los Angeles, une ville « refuge », de fournir, par exemple, les informations sur la sortie de prison d’illégaux condamnés par les tribunaux. C’est ce qu’a rappelé la journaliste du Wall Street Journal Allysia Finley, qui évalue leur nombre à quelques centaines de milliers sur tout le territoire américain.

On doit certes reprocher à Donald Trump et tout particulièrement à son chef adjoint de cabinet, Stephen Miller, leur acharnement sur ces illégaux qui travaillent et vivent pacifiquement depuis longtemps aux États-Unis. Mais certainement pas de combattre une immigration illégale devenue endémique, puisque le président a justement été élu pour ça. Et encore moins de renvoyer ceux qui ont été condamnés par la justice, comme ont souhaité le faire tous les ministres de l’Intérieur qui se sont succédé depuis dix ans en France. Dans ces combats — qu’il a d’ailleurs en partie déjà gagnés puisque les entrées à la frontière mexicaine ont chuté de manière spectaculaire —, Trump a le soutien d’une majorité d’Américains.

« L’indécence de l’époque ne provient pas d’un excès, mais d’un déficit de frontières », a écrit Régis Debray. Frontières que l’écrivain définissait comme « le bouclier des humbles ». Cette odeur de poudre, en France comme aux États-Unis, est le fruit de longues années qui ont vu triompher l’idéologie du sans-frontiérisme. Pas plus que les hommes ne peuvent vivre sans famille, les nations ne peuvent vivre sans frontières. Si celles du pays s’effondrent, des murs s’élèveront dans chaque région, des clôtures dans chaque quartier et autour de chaque maison. À terme, les citoyens décideront de se défendre eux-mêmes. C’est ainsi que l’on crée le terreau d’une guerre civile dont les symptômes avant-coureurs sont déjà sous nos yeux.

Source: Une odeur de guerre civile

…. Certainly, 18 months before the mid-term elections, the sending of national guards and the navies to control the rioters is probably a matter of a political calculation. But California Governor Gavin Newsom is also not without ambition at a time when Democrats are looking for a savior. Recall also that the savage round-ups of the immigration police (ICE) are partly due to the refusal of the City of Los Angeles, a “refuge” city, to provide, for example, information on the release from prison of illegals convicted by the courts. This is what Wall Street Journal journalist Allysia Finley, who estimates their number at a few hundred thousand throughout the American territory.

We must certainly blame Donald Trump and especially his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, for their fierceness on these illegals who have been working and living peacefully in the United States for a long time. But certainly not to fight illegal immigration that has become endemic, since the president was precisely elected for that. And even less to dismiss those who have been convicted by justice, as all the interior ministers who have succeeded each other for ten years in France have wished to do. In these fights – which he has already partly won since entrances to the Mexican border have fallen dramatically – Trump has the support of a majority of Americans.

“The indecency of the time does not come from an excess, but from a deficit of borders,” wrote Régis Debray. Borders that the writer defined as “the shield of the humble”. This smell of powder, in France as in the United States, is the result of long years that have seen the ideology of borderlessism triumph. Just as men cannot live without a family, nations cannot live without borders. If those of the country collapse, walls will rise in each region, fences in each neighborhood and around each house. Eventually, citizens will decide to defend themselves. This is how we create the soil of a civil war whose harbingering symptoms are already before our eyes.

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Lalande | Here is a two-step plan to rebuild Canada’s economy and it isn’t centred on our natural resources

2025/06/13 Leave a comment

Step One repeats the previous tired messages, Step Two looks more sensibly looks forward on how to capitalize on the Trump administrations attacks on universities, scientists and researchers:

Canada’s premiers and prime minister want the world to know that they are ready to build: pipelines, a revitalized military, new high-speed transit, an energy corridor.

But if Canada is to build a truly national economy and to effectively respond to the Trump administration’s economic instability and isolation, it needs a larger, more skilled, and more adaptive workforce.

And there is a clear, achievable two-step strategy we must take to get there.

Step One

The first strategy is to reverse course on the government’s immigration cuts and to build a smart, long-term population strategy.

Last fall, the federal government announced a 20 per cent reduction in immigration levels in its 2025—2027 levels plan. It was a short-term political decision that will leave long-term economic scarring. Research from the Parliamentary Budget Officer shows this policy will reduce Canada’s nominal GDP by $37 billion over just three years. As detailed in Century Initiative’s latest report, cutting immigration accelerates economic decline by constricting labour supply and choking growth.

This contraction is unfolding against the backdrop of a demographic “perfect storm”: a rapidly aging population, a declining fertility rate, and severe labour shortages across critical sectors.

We can’t build the strongest economy in the G7 if our workforce is shrinking, particularly in high-growth sectors.

Canada cannot navigate this storm without a serious plan. We need strategic, well-managed immigration designed not only to meet immediate gaps but to build the long-term foundation for shared prosperity.

Realizing this vision will require purposeful collaboration between different levels of government, including building on intergovernmental successes like the provincial nominee program. Further, business, academia, and civil society all have a role to play leveraging their respective reach, resources, and networks.

This is the plan that enables every other plan. Infrastructure. National defence. Clean tech. Housing. None of it is possible without a strong tax base and a skilled, growing talent pool.

Step Two

The second strategy is to launch a targeted U.S. talent attraction strategy.

Flagrant and damaging threats from the Trump administration against Harvard and other academic institutions, the defunding of research institutions like the National Science Foundation, the gutting of visa programs, and the political targeting of international students have all weakened America’s standing as a magnet for innovation.

Taken together, these actions have opened the door in the global war for talent. As the saying goes, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”

But we ought to capitalize on that mistake. As the U.S. turns inward, we should position ourselves as a global safe haven for scientists, entrepreneurs, and students who no longer feel welcome — or funded — south of the border.

This means being strategic about research opportunities, targeting U.S. universities with visa programs and recruitment campaigns for high-performing graduates. 

While appropriately managing international student capacity, we should simplify employment pathways for international students and postdocs in tech, AI, clean energy, and health sciences.

Settlement services should be rolled out in partnership with cross-border companies who are willing to relocate here. And regional accelerator hubs should bolster our fastest-growing sectors — connecting immigration, innovation, and talent with opportunity.

Canada’s greatest asset isn’t just our natural resources or trade deals — it’s our ability to build a fair, open, future-ready society. That takes people. And in this moment, when the U.S. is retreating from talent, science, and global leadership, we have the opportunity — and responsibility — to step up.

Source: Opinion | Here is a two-step plan to rebuild Canada’s economy and it isn’t centred on our natural resources

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Terry Glavin: We’re not Los Angeles yet, but it might be coming

2025/06/13 Leave a comment

Behind the alarmist click bait headline, some serious issues. Striking silence on the impact of social media discourses. They fraying of the consensus is largely based on concerns over housing, healthcare and infrastructure, all exacerbated by Liberal government excessive levels of both temporary and permanent residents, largely encouraged by provincial governments, business and advocates:

…On top of the economic impacts, there’s the matter of Canada’s fraying social fabric.

A huge surge in wealth migration from the People’s Republic of China in recent years has swamped Canada’s long-standing Cantonese communities and introduced grave threats to Canada’s political sovereignty. After all the scandals involving compromised federal politicians and manipulated federal election races, there is still no sign that the Carney government intends to proceed with a foreign influence registry.

With politically active immigrants from the Middle East emerging as a heavy counterweight to Canada’s long-standing affinity with the Jewish state of Israel, profound changes are underway in the formulation of Canada’s foreign policy and Canada’s traditions of religious tolerance.

For all the Liberals’ recent admissions of error, the Trudeau government’s immigration legacy is with us still, and there’s little evidence that a Carney government, despite its reassurances, will be making much of a break with it.

While Toronto has lately adopted an American-style “sanctuary city” policy through its Access T.O. initiative (“Access to City Services for Undocumented Torontonians), this doesn’t mean that Canada is hurtling towards American-style standoffs between federal and local enforcement authorities.

It’s just that while Americans are going through distinctly American convulsions related to immigration, Canada doesn’t have anything to brag about. Canada’s old consensus on immigration has been broken. The public trust in a functioning immigration system has been badly shaken.

It can’t go on like this.

Source: Terry Glavin: We’re not Los Angeles yet, but it might be coming

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Saunders: Mexico and Canada fell apart over migration. Could it bring us back together?

2025/06/12 Leave a comment

While regular pathways for workers are preferable to irregular ones, don’t think eliminating visitor visa requirements is the right way to go. Invites perceived abuse and thus contributes to less support for immigration compared to work visas (which of course can also be abused):

…Mr. Carney’s “nation-building” agenda – the accelerated construction of millions of homes and transportation and energy infrastructure projects – will require unprecedented numbers of skilled-trades and construction workers, many from abroad. It’s an opportunity to forge a migration co-operation agreement with Mexico that could provide the incentives and processes needed to restore visa-free travel. 

The G7, given the elephant in the room, is probably not the place to start mending this rift. But the two heads of government should meet soon, and in person, to restore both human mobility and political cooperation between two countries that have more in common with each other than with the untamed animal lying between them.

Source: Mexico and Canada fell apart over migration. Could it bring us back together?

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Poilievre calls for ‘severe limits’ on Canadian population growth

2025/06/12 Leave a comment

Without, of course, giving any numbers. At some point, both Poilievre and critic Rempel Garner need to provide some numbers to define what they mean by “severe”. Halving numbers back to the Harper government, less or more?

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the Canadian population has grown out of control and is calling on the Liberal government to further reduce immigration.

“We want severe limits on population growth to reverse the damage the Liberals did to our system,” Poilievre said during a press conference Tuesday in the foyer of the House of Commons.“The population has been growing out of control, our border has been left wide open. This has caused the free flow of drugs, illegal migration, human trafficking and much worse.”

Poilievre did not take followup questions from reporters on what he meant by “severe limits on population growth.”Global News has reached out to the Conservative Party of Canada for clarification but did not receive a response at the time of publication…

Source: Poilievre calls for ‘severe limits’ on Canadian population growth

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Inquiétude palpable au Québec devant la chute marquée du nombre d’étudiants internationaux

2025/06/12 Leave a comment

As elsewhere in Canada:

Le nombre de demandes d’admission d’étudiants internationaux dans les universités québécoises a chuté de près de moitié en un an au Québec. Une situation qui menace de nuire à la survie financière de plusieurs établissements, à la recherche scientifique et à la vitalité économique de plusieurs secteurs, montre une vaste étude obtenue par Le Devoir.

Le document, de plus de 230 pages, a été réalisé par le cabinet de conseil en management Volume 10, qui rendra celui-ci public mercredi au terme d’une démarche marquée par une importante collecte de données gouvernementales et universitaires de même que par la réalisation de plus d’une centaine d’entretiens avec des chanceliers d’université, des acteurs du milieu des affaires et des personnalités, parmi lesquelles figurent Pauline Marois, Jean Charest et le scientifique en chef du Québec, Rémi Quirion.

« Il n’y a tout simplement pas assez d’étudiants québécois qui poursuivent des études avancées en science. Quand j’étais chercheur, sans l’apport des étudiants internationaux, mon laboratoire n’aurait jamais pu connaître un tel succès international », a d’ailleurs déclaré M. Quirion dans un entretien accordé aux auteurs de ce rapport, le président de Volume 10, Félix-Antoine Joli-Coeur, et la chercheuse Leila Dhar.

Or, entre avril 2024 et avril 2025, l’ensemble des universités québécoises a enregistré en moyenne une baisse des demandes d’admission provenant de l’international de 45,9 %, montre ce rapport, qui associe cette chute à une série de décisions prises par Québec et Ottawa dans les dernières années.

Le gouvernement fédéral a notamment mis en place en janvier 2024 un plafond du nombre de permis d’études pouvant être remis à des étudiants internationaux à l’échelle du pays, venant ainsi réduire de 35 % la délivrance de ceux-ci par rapport à l’année précédente. Il a par la suite abaissé ce seuil maximal de 10 % en janvier dernier par rapport à 2024….

Source: Inquiétude palpable au Québec devant la chute marquée du nombre d’étudiants internationaux

The number of applications for admission from international students to Quebec universities has fallen by almost half in a year in Quebec. A situation that threatens to harm the financial survival of several institutions, scientific research and the economic vitality of several sectors, shows a large study obtained by Le Devoir.

The document, of more than 230 pages, was produced by the management consulting firm Volume 10, which will make it public on Wednesday at the end of an approach marked by an important collection of government and academic data as well as by the conduct of more than a hundred interviews with university chancellors, business actors and personalities, including Pauline Marois, Jean Charest and Quebec’s chief scientist, Rémi Quirion.

“There are simply not enough Quebec students pursuing advanced studies in science. When I was a researcher, without the contribution of international students, my laboratory could never have been so successful internationally, “said Mr. Quirion in an interview with the authors of this report, the president of Volume 10, Félix-Antoine Joli-Coeur, and researcher Leila Dhar.

However, between April 2024 and April 2025, all Quebec universities recorded an average decrease in international admission applications of 45.9%, shows this report, which links this fall to a series of decisions taken by Quebec and Ottawa in recent years.

In particular, the federal government implemented in January 2024 a ceiling on the number of study permits that can be issued to international students nationwide, thus reducing the issuance of them by 35% compared to the previous year. It subsequently lowered this maximum threshold by 10% last January compared to 2024….

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Can Near-Historic Low Migrant Encounter Levels at the U.S.-Mexico Border Be Sustained?

2025/06/11 Leave a comment

Good question, force only or with other migration management measures that started under the Biden administration:

Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border have fallen to lows not seen since the 1960s. In April, the U.S. Border Patrol reported intercepting fewer than 8,400 irregular crossers—a stark contrast from the record high of nearly 250,000 encounters witnessed in December 2023. And data picked up elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere suggest unauthorized migration headed northward is slowing across the region: Reporting from the Darien Gap, the treacherous jungle that divides Panama and Colombia, shows there were just 200 crossings in March, compared to more than 37,000 the same month a year earlier.

With these near-historic lows, the Trump administration can rightfully claim that it has secured the border at this time, building on declines that began in early 2024 and accelerated in the second half of the year. The longer-term test, however, is whether this success can be sustained through the administration’s new show of force alone, without the less visible migration management ingredients that led to the quieting border the administration inherited.

A Year-Long Story of Reduced Migrant Flows 

The current lows build on a pattern of reduced irregular arrivals that started with changes in Biden administration policies in early 2024. Amid the record level of Southwest border arrivals witnessed in December 2023, which came on the heels of two years of record border encounters during the Biden administration, the U.S. and Mexican governments negotiated increased Mexican enforcement at Mexico’s northern border and throughout the country, including checkpoints throughout well-traveled interior routes.

With this ongoing additional enforcement from Mexico, irregular arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border decreased by 53 percent between December 2023 and May 2024 (see Figure 1). The impact of Mexican enforcement cannot be overstated: Mexican authorities recorded more encounters than did the U.S. Border Patrol  every single month between May 2024 and March 2025 (the most recent month for which Mexican enforcement data are available).

Figure 1. Irregular Migrant Encounters by U.S. Border Patrol at U.S.-Mexico Border, 2023–25

Note: The data here reflect encounters recorded by the U.S. Border Patrol of migrants crossing the border without authorization; U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations encounters of migrants arriving at a U.S. port of entry without prior authorization to enter are not included here.
Source: CBP, “CBP Nationwide Encounters,” accessed May 29, 2025.

Following implementation of the Biden administration’s June 2024 Secure the Border rule,  irregular encounters continued to drop, with the ongoing aid offered by increased Mexican enforcement. This rule sought to disincentivize illegal entries and incentivize arrivals at a port of entry by further limiting access to asylum for those who crossed between ports of entry and permitting an appointment, through use of the CBP One app, to be screened at an official port of entry. Those who entered through the CBP One app could later go on to apply for asylum.

Irregular crossings dropped from 84,000 that June to 47,000 in December, a 43 percent decrease. Notably, encounters in December 2024 were 81 percent lower than the same month a year earlier. Proof that the carrot-and-stick approach was beginning to turn the tide was seen in November 2024, when for the first time more migrants arrived at ports of entry than between (see Figure 2). Though by a small margin, this shift established a pattern of more migrants seeking to enter lawfully via CBP One rather than risk entering irregularly.

Figure 2. Migrant Encounters At and Between Ports of Entry at U.S.-Mexico Border, 2024

Note: Office of Field Operations (OFO) encounters occur at ports of entry; U.S. Border Patrol encounters occur between ports of entry.
Source: CBP, “CBP Nationwide Encounters.”

Inheriting an Increasingly Quiet Border

Thus, the current lows seen under the Trump administration represent a continuation of trends established during the prior administration—and momentum the Biden team put in place by increasing migration management cooperation with Mexico and other countries in the Western Hemisphere as well as further narrowing access to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. However, upon taking office, the Trump administration shuttered many of the programs that had become the basis for dramatic reductions in irregular arrivals.

During his first days in office, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the border and a migrant “invasion.” By cancelling use of the CBP One app while leaving the Secure the Border rule restrictions in place, the Trump administration made asylum inaccessible at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Most notably, the administration terminated access to Biden-era humanitarian pathways that had helped reduce chaotic arrivals at the Southwest border. The Trump administration swiftly ended admissions under the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) parole program, which reduced irregular encounters of those nationalities at the border by 92 percent between October 2022 and December 2024. Nearly 532,000 individuals were admitted through the CHNV program, allowing them access to work permits and temporary relief from deportation. The administration also closed the Safe Mobility Offices (SMOs) that had been set up in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala to consider migrants for refugee resettlement or other lawful pathways before they reached the U.S. border. More than 40,000 people were approved for U.S. refugee status through the SMOs.

Source: Can Near-Historic Low Migrant Encounter Levels at the U.S.-Mexico Border Be Sustained?

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