Developments
The Senate remains in session and continues to debate a supplemental appropriations bill that now has no border content in it. So far, procedural maneuvers and internal disputes among Republican senators have prevented the Senate from considering any border or migration-related amendments.
A Twitter thread from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) listed some of the border-hardening and migration-restriction amendments that Republican senators have proposed but been unable to get to the Senate floor. A thread from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) explained the convoluted parliamentary process that the chamber will be following over the next few days.
This process may yet provide opportunities for border amendments, though Republican proponents’ window is closing. “Feelings are running so high within the Republican conference, that Republicans have so far been unable to agree on any amendment, let alone a schedule of amendments that can accelerate the schedule,” Sen. Whitehouse noted.
The most likely outcome is that Democrats and a minority of Republicans will combine to pass a “borderless” supplemental appropriation. What happens when the bill then gets sent to the Republican-majority House of Representatives is unclear.
- “Mike Lee @Basedmikelee on Twitter” (Twitter, February 11, 2024).
- “Sheldon Whitehouse @Senwhitehouse on Twitter” (Twitter, February 11, 2024).
- Joseph Zeballos-Roig, “Will the border bill debacle scare senators away from bipartisan dealmaking?“ (Semafor, February 12, 2024).
- Ursula Perano, “Senate Gets the No-Border Supplemental One Step Closer to Passage” (Politico, February 9, 2024).
- Jake Sherman, Andrew Desiderio and John Bresnahan, “What will Johnson do with the Senate foreign-aid bill?“ (Punchbowl News, February 12, 2024).
Panama’s authorities counted 36,001 people migrating through the treacherous Darién Gap region in January, an increase from December and much more than January 2023, but still the 4th-smallest monthly total of the last 12 months. At some point last month, the 500,000th Venezuelan migrant of the 2020s (in fact, the 500,000th just since January 2022) crossed the Darién Gap. That’s one out of every sixty Venezuelan citizens.
- “Darién Gap Migration Through January“ (adamisacson.com, February 10, 2024).
The University of California at San Diego’s health trauma center treated 455 patients last year who suffered serious injuries while trying to cross the border—441 of them the result of falls from the very high border wall that the Trump administration installed there. That is up from 311 wall-related injuries in 2022, 254 in 2021, 91 in 2020, and 42 in 2019.
- Paulina Velasco, “Us Hospital Treated 441 Patients With Severe Injuries From Border Wall Last Year” (The Guardian (Uk), February 9, 2024).
False rumors about a year-end border closure or halt in CBP One appointments may be a key reason why migration at the U.S.-Mexico border reached record levels in December and then fell by half in January, the Washington Examiner reported.
- Anna Giaritelli, “Rumors in Mexico Triggered Surge Across Border in December and Sharp Drop in January” (The Washington Examiner, February 9, 2024).
In Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, a municipal human rights official told EFE that the city “is currently experiencing one of the periods with the lowest presence of migrants.” Santiago González called it “a suspicious calm” amid a possibility of migration policy changes coming from Washington.
- “Autoridades y Activistas Advierten Nueva Saturacion Migratoria en Frontera Norte de Mexico” (EFE, Efecto Cocuyo (Venezuela), February 11, 2024).
Border Patrol processed a group of migrants who had to wait for many hours outside in a snowstorm near Sasabe, Arizona on the night of February 10.
- “John Washington @Jbwashing on Twitter” (Twitter, February 10, 2024).
- “John Washington @Jbwashing on Twitter” (Twitter, February 11, 2024).
Analyses and Feature Stories
Mexico-based Journalist Ioan Grillo published highlights of interviews with people in Piedras Negras, across from Eagle Pass, Texas. “They hunt them down and they get every peso they can from them,” the nun who runs the Casa del Migrante said of the Coahuila state police force. “It’s terrible.”
- Ioan Grillo, “The Mexican Side of the Border Crisis” (UnHerd, February 12, 2024).
Eagle Pass, a town of 30,000, is so jammed with state security personnel that room rates at the Holiday Inn Express have risen to more than $250 per night, the Dallas Morning News reported.
- Aaron Torres, “Small Texas Town of Eagle Pass Plays an Outsized Role in National Debate on Border Issues” (The Dallas Morning News, February 11, 2024).
The notion that migrants supply the United States with fentanyl is false, explained an Austin American-Statesman fact check. The story is “a classic example of what we call dangerous speech: language that inspires fear and violence by describing another group of people as an existential threat,” wrote Catherine Buerger and Susan Benesch at the Los Angeles Times.
- Bayliss Wagner, “Rep. Michael Mccaul Falsely Claims Mayorkas Is “Personally Responsible” for Fentanyl Crisis” (The Austin American-Statesman, February 11, 2024).
- Catherine Buerger, Susan Benesch, “Many Americans Believe Migrants Bring Fentanyl Across the Border. That’s Wrong and Dangerous” (Dangerous Speech Project, The Los Angeles Times, February 12, 2024).
- Michael Daly, “Sorry, Maga. Americans, Not Migrants, Are Smuggling Fentanyl.” (The Daily Beast, February 10, 2024).
An editorial in Guatemala’s Prensa Libre newspaper called on the country’s new government to carry out a purge of the national police force’s corruption-riven border unit (Dipafront), which regularly shakes down migrants for cash.
- “Depuración no basta, debe haber precedentes” (Prensa Libre (Guatemala), February 10, 2024).
The Washington Post published a dozen charts illustrating migration trends at the border during the Trump and Biden administrations.
- Maria Sacchetti, Nick Miroff, Sarah Frostenson, “Trump vs. Biden on Immigration: 12 Charts Comparing U.S. Border Security” (The Washington Post, February 11, 2024).
Many statistics about regional migration trends, causes, and migrant deaths are in the International Organization for Migration’s latest quarterly Tendencias Migratorias en las Américas report.
- “Tendencias Migratorias en las Americas Octubre-Diciembre de 2023” (International Organization for Migration, February 9, 2024).
Much punditry covered expectations that the Democratic Party will take advantage of last week’s collapse of a Senate border deal to turn the border security and migration narrative against Republicans in the upcoming election campaign.
- Ally Mutnick, Burgess Everett, “‘Unbelievable Hypocrisy’: Democrats Hope to Turn the Tide on Border Security” (Politico, February 11, 2024).
- Joey Garrison, “Flipping the Script: Biden Promises to Hit Trump ‘Every Day’ Over Southern Border” (USA Today, February 10, 2024).
- Ellen M. Gilmer, “Immigration Dealmaker Surveys Wreckage After Border Bill’s Crash” (Bloomberg Government, February 9, 2024).
- Fareed Zakaria, “The Border Compromise Would’ve Helped—a Lot” (CNN, February 9, 2024).
On the Right
- John Binder, “The List: 64 Ways Joe Biden Opened America’s Borders to the World’s Migrants” (Breitbart, February 10, 2024).