Illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped to a five-year low this week, amid the holidays and the Biden administration’s ongoing efforts to contain unlawful crossings at the border.
U.S. Border Patrol logged an average of 1,000 daily migrant encounters in the seven days ended Jan. 5 along the U.S.-Mexico border, a senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told USA TODAY on Monday.
The agency hasn’t seen average daily crossings at that level since April 2020, the official said. At the time, it was the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when global travel and migration slowed dramatically.
Migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border typically dip right after the winter holidays.
But the early January average was a quarter of what it was during the same week a year ago, when average daily encounters topped 4,000, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak with the press.