New data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection show a slight drop in migrant encounters at the nation’s southwest border.
With the COVID-19 era Title 42 turn-away policy ending on May 11, border patrol recorded 204,561 migrant encounters for the month of May. It’s a slight 3% decrease from April.
Compared to the past two years the figure is solidly in the middle of the pack as encounters are down 15% compared to last May and up 13% from May of 2021.
Another possible consequence of the ending of Title 42 is a fluctuation in where migrants encountered at the southern border hail from.
Central American migrants still make up just under half of all encounters, but Honduran migrant encounters were up nearly 60%. Citizens from El Salvador and Guatemala were up 14% and 1% respectively. Mexican citizens make up one in four migrant encounters as a total share in May, but fell 18% compared to last month.
Several countries outside of Central America experienced much larger jumps in encounters in May. Cuban citizens only make up 1% of encounters but increased 74%.
Russian citizens are also 1% of encounters and saw an encounter increase of 13%.
Encounters with Indian and Haitian citizenship holders declined by 41% and 29%. Both countries collectively make up 5% of encounters.
Venezuelans, the second largest overall group encountered at the border had a drop of 8%. The catch-all category “other,” defined by the border patrol as citizens of countries not separately classified in the data, make up 10% of overall encounters and increased 23%.
Arizona’s southern border followed a similar pattern to the total figures, dropping 3% in the past month.
CBP recorded 48,064 migrant encounters in the Yuma and Tucson sectors, down 22% from last May.
A different citizenship profile emerged with encounters with Chinese citizens was double at the border and Brazilians were up 50%.
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