July 2019
Strategic Solutions for the United States and Mexico to Manage the Migration Crisis
By Andrew Selee, Silvia E. Giorguli-Saucedo, Claudia Masferrer, and Ariel G. Ruiz Soto
This commentary was co-published with the El Colegio de México.
Over the past six months, migration from Central America to both Mexico and the United States has surged, as have asylum applications in both countries. Driven largely by mixed migration flows of humanitarian and economic migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, and to a lesser extent El Salvador, apprehensions more than tripled at the U.S.-Mexico border in May compared to similar numbers a year previously (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. U.S. Border Patrol Southwest Border Apprehensions, FY 2013-19*
* The fiscal year (FY) 2019 data are for the first nine months of the year, through June.
Sources: Migration Policy Institute (MPI) compilation of monthly data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), “Southwest Border Migration,†accessed July 12, 2019
www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration; CBP, “Total Illegal Alien Apprehensions by Month,†accessed July 12, 2019,
www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2019-Mar/bp-total-monthly-apps-sector-area-fy2018.pdf.
On June 7, the U.S. and Mexican governments agreed to a series of measures to reduce irregular flows by:
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/strategic-solutions-united-states-and-mexico-manage-migration-crisis
