How the U.S. and Mexico Drove Border Crossings Down in an Election Year

Michelle Hackman and Santiago Pérez

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When illegal migration surged across the U.S.-Mexico border last fall, Phoenix’s largest migrant shelter was so busy that cots filled the cafeteria and lined the hallways. Today the shelter, housed in a converted elementary school, is empty.

The U.S. has experienced a stark decline in illegal border crossings in the past six months, thanks to a newly sprung security gantlet migrants encounter traveling to the U.S. border through Mexico.

On the Mexican side, security checkpoints dot highways. Mexico’s National Guard patrols the southern banks of the Rio Grande, aiming to prevent mass concentrations of migrants. Thousands of asylum seekers caught heading north have been put on buses and sent back to southern Mexico near Guatemala. Aid organizations liken the busing strategy to the board game Chutes and Ladders, as migrants are moved around the country. The policy aims to discourage them from heading north. Many decide to return to South America, migrants say.