According to the United States Customs and Border Protection Office, CBP for its acronym in English, between October 2021 and September 2022 2,776,582 encounters with migrants were recorded at the country’s borders. 41.4% more than the previous fiscal year. Colombia, which had the highest increase, went from having 10,495 cases in fiscal year 2021 to 130,971 in 2022.
In the last three years alone, 5,369,923 people were declared inadmissible, expelled or apprehended for trying to cross the land limits of the country. 19% of these cases involved people who had already been detained in the previous 12 months.
In the case of Colombia, May was the month in which the largest number of these catches was recorded with a total of 19,862. During September, these encounters increased by 456% over the previous year.
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95% of Colombians who wanted to cross into the United States did so through the southwest border, which links Texas with the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas in Mexico; 3% of encounters occurred on the northern border, which connects with Canada; and the remaining 2% was presented in other bordering spaces.
This trend is maintained at the international level, since 86% of the total attempts occurred on the southwestern border. This is because Mexico is a country with easier access for Latin American migrants.while people from Europe and Asia go to that border since, in some cases, their purchasing power allows them to buy cars and cross the border to seek asylum.
During this last fiscal year, At least 823 Colombian minors tried to cross the border unaccompanied. While 60,115 families were apprehended and 69,867 adults tried to enter on their own. In 2022 alone, 152,200 of the total number of migrants from all countries were children without adult support.
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90.5% of the procedures at the border occurred under Title 8, that determines the inadmissibility and arrests of people who were found crossing the border. The remaining 9.5% was given under the controversial Title 42, a figure created by the covid-19 pandemic to return migrants to their countries.
The situation of other nationalities
Despite the measures taken by the governments of both countries, the Mexican population was the one that had the greatest number of encounters at the borders of the United States. In 2022 alone, 823,057 people from the Aztec country were registered trying to reach this country, which represents almost 30% of all migrants. In addition, this country had a growth of meetings of 118.2% compared to the previous fiscal year.
Colombians were not the only people who grew up when it came to joining the American power. Ukraine experienced a 938% increase in cases over the previous fiscal year, this due to the outbreak of war with Russia. Also, Cuba registered an increase of 471% and Venezuela of 275%.
Given this, CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus stated that: “Although the failed regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua continued to drive a new wave of migration in the Western Hemisphere, the number of Venezuelans arriving at the southern border decreased. drastically almost every day since we launched additional joint actions with Mexico to reduce irregular migration.”
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Precisely, according to the same CBP, the number of Venezuelans found at the US border decreased by 80% compared to the week before the launch of the joint actions with the Mexican government.
Meanwhile, the US government is advancing policies to expel to Mexico migrants trying to enter through land borders or doing so illegally. At the moment, there is the program “United for Ukraine” and “Humanitarian Sponsorship” in which it is proposed to support thousands of people from the country at war and from Venezuela due to the humanitarian crisis in both regions.
ANDRES PINEDA
EL TIEMPO SCHOOL OF MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISM
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