Home Andrew R. Arthur 30% of FY22 Border Arrests Aren’t from Mexico or the Northern Triangle
The limits of the Biden administration’s "root causes" efforts
By Andrew R. Arthur on December 22, 2021
I reported this week that the migrant surge at the Southwest border that began in FY 2021 has continued largely unabated into October and November. An increasing number of migrants who are not from Mexico (OTMs) or nationals of the “Northern Triangle” countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras (ONTs) is exacerbating that surge. They pose the biggest challenge to the one of the few public efforts that the Biden administration is undertaking to control the Southwest border.
Historical Trends. For decades, illegal entrants over the Southwest border were almost exclusively from Mexico. In FY 2000, for example, more than 97 percent of all Border Patrol apprehensions there were Mexican nationals.
Beginning in FY 2014, however, the number of OTMs apprehended at that border surpassed Mexican nationals (who made up 47.3 percent of the total), as illegal migration from the Northern Triangle surged. By FY 2019, nationals of the three Northern Triangle countries made up more than 71 percent of all Southwest border apprehensions.
FY 2021 saw a new and disturbing trend: The rise in OTM and ONT illegal migrants at the Southwest border. Border Patrol apprehended more than 367,000 OTM/ONT aliens there in the last fiscal year, 22 percent of total Southwest border apprehensions in FY 2021.
https://cis.org/Arthur/30-FY22-Border-Arrests-Arent-Mexico-or-Northern-Triangle
