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For the just-ended 2024 fiscal year, the Biden administration turned the tide at the U.S.-Mexico border after two years of record levels of irregular crossings, by deepening its carrot-and-stick approach alongside increased immigration enforcement throughout the Western Hemisphere, especially from Mexico. For the full fiscal year that ended September 30, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 2.1 million encounters at and between ports of entry along the Southwest border—a 14 percent decrease from the nearly 2.5 million encounters recorded in FY 2023. The month of September represented the lowest monthly encounters of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization seen during this administration—with the 54,000 encounters a steep drop from the all-time monthly high of 250,000 encounters recorded in December 2023. The September tally also represents the lowest level of irregular arrivals since September 2020, at the tail end of the Trump administration. An additional 199,000 encounters were recorded at the U.S.-Canada border during FY 2024, for a total at all borders of 2.3 million.
The Biden playbook rests on narrowing asylum eligibility for migrants who cross the border illegally, expanding the use of lawful migration pathways, and encouraging Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, and other regional partners to increase their migration controls and enforcement. Unauthorized crossings of the U.S. Southern border began to fall steadily in January as Mexico further stepped up its enforcement. And irregular crossings dropped even more sharply following the administration’s June implementation of the Secure the Border rule. This rule suspends asylum eligibility at the border when crossings reach a seven-day average of 2,500; the bar remains in place until encounters drop below 1,500 for 28 consecutive days. At the same time, options for lawful migration pathways—such as the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) parole program; use of the CBP One app to schedule an appointment to be screened for entry at a port; and Safe Mobility Offices (SMOs) that allow migrants to be considered for protection or other pathways far earlier in their journeys—have led to more migrants arriving at ports of entry to be paroled into the country and as refugees.
Taken together, these policies have ushered in a new era of migration management in response to unprecedented changes in flows over the last three and a half years. These efforts represent new and innovative approaches to managing migration, even as they are subject to litigation and change. At the same time, their impacts have been disparate across nationalities and severely limit access to protection for some. The Biden playbook, therefore, should be considered a starting point for innovations in managing dynamic border flows rather than the end game.
The Immutable Challenges of Border Processing
The Border Patrol’s capacity to fairly and timely process border arrivals for entry or removal has long been a challenge. Record-high irregular arrivals, the growing diversity of migrants’ nationalities, large numbers of families, and migrants surrendering en masse to request asylum, all stretched the Border Patrol’s limited processing capacity, resulting in often-arbitrary outcomes and high numbers of migrants released into the U.S. interior to await a long-off immigration court date. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates the Biden administration as of May had allowed in 5.7 million migrants who had crossed illegally into the United States from Mexico or Canada to pursue their immigration cases or were lawfully paroled into the country through the CBP One app, the CHNV program or other parole programs (such as for Afghans and Ukrainians). While the number is significant, it falls well below the 21 million number suggested by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his allies.
The implementation of the Secure the Border rule in June has drastically reduced the number of migrants released into the country. In September, 17 percent of irregular border encounters were released into the United States after being processed with a Notice to Appear (NTA) in immigration court, compared to the 65 percent release rate during the first month of FY 2024, last October. As border arrivals have fallen this year, the share of migrants placed into expedited removal proceedings dramatically increased (see Figure 1). Reducing the release rate of migrants ineligible for asylum is necessary for border enforcement to succeed in delivering consequences for illegal crossings.
There is more to this shift than meets the eye. Notably, Border Patrol processing capacity has not changed as a result of the rule; the agency has the capacity to place, on average, about 27,000 individuals into expedited removal each month. Therefore, not surprisingly, as the number of irregular arrivals decreased, the share placed into expedited removal increased. Also because of capacity limitations, the number of migrants who were actually removed has been relatively unchanged since the rule’s implementation. In addition, even with the reduction in border arrivals, there are not enough asylum officers to provide credible fear screening for all migrants expressing fear of return to their home countries.
The rise in the share of migrants placed into expedited removal is also due to an increasing share encountered from countries where U.S. authorities can more easily remove them. Since May, migrants from Mexico and northern Central America have accounted for a greater proportion of Border Patrol encounters, rising from 60 percent in May to 70 percent in September (see Figure 2). In contrast, last December, when fewer than half of border crossings were of Mexicans and northern Central Americans, just 8 percent of migrants were placed into expedited removal. This means that if border arrivals surge anew or their composition diversifies again, the Border Patrol will once more face processing difficulties.
Policy Shapes Which Migrants Arrive Where
In response to high irregular encounters, the Biden administration also put in place a series of lawful pathways, aiming to achieve order and more effectively manage border arrivals. These pathways cut unevenly across nationalities. The CBP One app, for instance, has drastically changed how migrants arrive at the border, with more than ever going to ports of entry with an appointment secured long before they reach the U.S. border to seek admission (see Figure 3). Most Cubans and Haitians, and increasingly Venezuelans, who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border in FY 2024 sought admission at a port of entry. But Central Americans, who are more likely to be subject to enforcement in Mexico and are unable or unwilling to wait there for a CBP One appointment, continued to primarily cross without authorization.
The Biden administration has implemented other programs that bring protection options closer to would-be migrants’ homes. The CHNV program, which allows migrants of those nationalities with a U.S.-based sponsor to apply for temporary lawful U.S. entry if they pay for their own flight, has resulted in more than 531,000 admissions at airports. The SMOs in Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala represent another approach, resettling more than 20,000 refugees through the end of FY 2024. This shift reflects the first time the overseas refugee resettlement program has placed a high priority on increasing protection access in Latin America.
Although they have incentivized more orderly arrivals, the parole pathways of the CBP One app and the CHNV program have a signal difference with refugee resettlement through SMOs: Lack of an on-ramp to permanent U.S. residence. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced in October that it will not re-parole individuals who entered through the CHNV program once their initial parole of one to two years is up. While Cubans may be eligible to seek lawful permanent residence, and some Haitians and Venezuelans may be eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Nicaraguans and others ineligible for TPS will need to seek asylum for an opportunity to stay and work lawfully once their CHNV parole expires. As for CBP One entrants, they are issued an NTA upon entry and must apply for asylum or another pathway or risk removal. These parole programs have significantly reduced irregular arrivals but lack ways to secure their recipients’ longer-term future.
Enforcement: Increasingly Regional in Nature
The Biden administration has relied on immigration enforcement by Mexico and other regional partners more than any prior U.S. administration—another development driven by the increasingly hemispheric nature of migration over the past several years. With a fraction of the resources of their U.S. counterparts, Mexican immigration enforcement agencies played a pivotal role in sharply decreasing arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border this fiscal year (see Figure 4). Due to limited detention capacity and resources, however, the Mexican government has repatriated just 2 percent of migrants encountered from January through August. Instead, Mexican authorities relocate many migrants, especially Venezuelans, to southern Mexico, seeking to incentivize their voluntary departure or asylum seeking in Mexico.
Other enforcement efforts in the region appear to have also redirected movement to the United States. In November 2023, El Salvador began fining migrants traveling through its airports to subsequently migrate to the United States, and Ecuador in July ended visa-free travel for Chinese travelers after finding that many used Ecuador as a launching pad to the United States. And in August, the U.S. government began funding deportation flights from Panama, with 17 flights deporting a total of 629 individuals as of October.
Is This Strategy Sustainable?
Though the Biden playbook has brought about significant change, continued success in reducing irregular arrivals rests on a host of factors, including how would-be migrants react to U.S. politics, as American elections tend to shape perceptions of the urgency or difficulty of migrating. Other factors include whether Mexico’s enforcement policies will change now that President Claudia Sheinbaum is in office, litigation outcomes for parole-like programs including CBP One and CHNV, and migration controls at the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama.
For now, the administration’s multipronged strategy has brought more order to the border—albeit in imperfect ways. Access to asylum at the border has been severely narrowed and several of the most used lawful pathways place migrants in twilight statuses, at risk of falling into the unauthorized population once their temporary protections end.
It remains to be seen if the Biden playbook can hold up to legal challenges in U.S. courts and a delicate balance of factors, some outside of U.S. control, including evolving migration dynamics shaped by myriad global factors, policy shifts by Mexico and other countries, and changing tactics by human smugglers. Understanding how these factors interact will be crucial for the next administration, regardless of political party, in proactively adapting to the new migration realities across the hemisphere.
Following two years of record encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in FY 2022 and FY 2023, these policy changes have left a defining mark on the Biden administration’s immigration legacy. Whether this strategy marks a beginning to build upon or an end point for future administrations may turn on the November election outcome.