–        “The undocumented populations from Central America and Asia increased at the same rate from 2010 to 2016. After 2016, the population from Asia stopped growing, and the population from Central America increased by about 200,000.”

–        “Since 2010, the undocumented population from Mexico has fallen from 6.6 million to 4.8 million, or by 28%.”

–        “In 2019, 42 states and Washington, DC, had fewer undocumented residents from Mexico than they had in 2010. The states with increases in undocumented persons from Mexico had small undocumented populations.” Between 2010 and 2019, the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico declined by 35% in California, 13% in Texas, 23% in Arizona, 41% in Illinois, 37% in Georgia and 27% in Florida.

However, news and politics are often dominated by the short-term, including what is happening at any moment on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Ali Noorani, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum, believes a combination of people today are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. “My sense is that we are talking about unaccompanied minors (UACs) presenting themselves for protection, families who were in Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) in Mexico and are re-entering through the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) process, families with young children who Mexico will not take back (in particular those in south Texas) and the population of single adults by and large from Mexico who are entering, apprehended, expelled and who then try to enter again,” he said in an interview.

“Nothing at the border right now is a surprise,” said Noorani on Twitter. “Therefore, it should not escalate to a crisis. The Biden administration needs to put in place the infrastructure, logistics and processes to manage the border. A crisis is when Trump expelled thousands of migrant children back to Mexico, strong-armed/bribed unsafe countries to pretend to be safe countries, and forced thousands of families to wait in Mexico while eviscerating the immigration system.”

The current situation at the border could affect bills to legalize Dreamers and others in the United States, although Robert Warren found no evidence that Congress considering legalization affects migrant decisions to come to America.

“An important finding is that the comprehensive immigration reform bill, S. 744, passed by the U.S. Senate in June 2013, did not cause an increase in undocumented immigration from Mexico,” writes Warren. “Instead, return migration fell by about half during the period that the bill was under active consideration. The finding that proposed legalization programs do not increase undocumented migration provides support for legalization proposals forthcoming from the Biden administration.”

A letter (February 2, 2021) from legal, religious and humanitarian organizations urged President Biden to stop using the authority invoked by the Trump administration to expel people at the border without due process. “We write to urge your administration to immediately end the misuse of Title 42 public health authority to illegally and inhumanely expel asylum seekers and migrants at the border,” according to the letter from Human Rights First, America’s Voice, American Immigration Lawyers Association, Anti-Defamation League, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) and other groups.

“Since March 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has blocked and turned away people at the southern border, including asylum seekers and children, without access to the U.S. asylum system or preliminary protection screenings, sending them to persecution, torture and other serious danger in violation of U.S. refugee and anti-trafficking laws and treaty obligations. The Trump administration, for instance, expelled prominent Nicaraguan dissidents who had attempted to seek asylum in the United States, returning them to Nicaragua where authorities had detained and beaten them for their political activism. Your administration continues to block and expel people, including families with children, under the same policy.

“These expulsions are being carried out under orders that Trump Administration officials pressured the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue despite objections by senior CDCmedical experts. . . . During the presidential campaign, you committed to end inhumane Trump administration border policies, uphold U.S. laws and treaty obligations to protect refugees and immigrant children, and adopt COVID-19 measures based in science. For your actions to reflect those promises, your administration must end the misuse of Title 42 public health authority at the border, stop blocking and expelling people seeking U.S. humanitarian protections, ensure appropriate infrastructure and support for shelters and other border groups to assist asylum seekers, and allow these families, children and adults to pursue their requests while in safety, inside the United States.”

In addition to addressing humanitarian concerns, the solution to preventing most future illegal entry is to make it possible for individuals to apply to work legally in the United States at the types of jobs many would otherwise fill as unauthorized immigrants.

Fernando Castillo picks “oranges and other crops for Elkhorn Packing, a company that provides labor through H-2A visas . . . He heard about the program through his job back in Tamaulipas, Mexico. It’s a good way to make more money, he says.”

“‘Because here the salary is a bit more than over there, and to help the bosses,’ he says,” according to National Public Radio. “The bosses he’s referring to are his parents. The 29-year-old sends money to them and his siblings. ‘To buy food to buy whatever they need in Mexico. Because in that country the salary is not enough to do certain stuff,’ he says. ‘And the American money over there gives people better benefits.’”

Contrast Fernando Castillo, who had a legal work visa and happily sends money to his family, with the fate of Yesenia Magali Melendrez from Guatemala.

“Yesenia Magali Melendrez Cardona told her father she wanted to follow in his footsteps,” reported the Los Angeles Times. “He had made the trek from Guatemala to the U.S. 15 years earlier in search of a new life. In February, she left a job and her studies behind and headed north. Chiquimulilla, the town where she had spent her 23 years, had been ravaged by the pandemic. Unemployment was rising. The population was desperate. The streets were too dangerous to walk at night.

“On Tuesday, Yesenia found herself in a situation just as perilous as the one she had fled. A maroon Ford Expedition bore a suspected smuggler and 24 people racing toward what they hoped would be safety. Yesenia and her mother, Verlyn Cardona, were wedged in the back when it drove through a breach in the fence separating Mexico from California.

“It was broadsided in the Imperial County town of Holtville by a semi hauling two empty trailers. It came to a stop, windshield shattered, at the intersection of Highway 115 and Norrish Road.

“Seventeen passengers were ejected from the SUV. When Verlyn regained consciousness in the back of the crumpled vehicle, her daughter was sprawled across her legs. Dead.”

Many potential asylum seekers from Central America would welcome the security of a work visa.

“The best solution, as ever, is to reduce the incentive for people to come illegally by creating more ways to work legally in America,” wrote the Wall Street Journal in a December 2018 editorial. “Most migrants come to work, and at the current moment there are plenty of unfilled jobs for them. A guest-worker program would let migrants move back and forth legally, ebbing and flowing based on employer needs, while reducing the ability of gangs and smuggler ‘coyotes’ to exploit vulnerable migrants.”

Research from the National Foundation for American Policy found increasing the legal admission of farmworkers during the 1950s under the Bracero Program significantly reduced unlawful entry to America. Based on apprehensions at the border, illegal entry to the United States fell by 95% between 1953 and 1959, as farmworkers entered legally in larger numbers. Today, a greater ability to work in jobs in other sectors, particularly year-round, would be welcomed by migrants and employers.

Making it easier to work and apply for protection lawfully will save lives and address illegal immigration. The unauthorized immigrant population in the United States has declined by 12% since 2010. It’s a statistic that should crawl across the screen whenever immigration is discussed on TV—or in Congress.