A combination of productive conversations, border efforts and partnerships with the president of Mexico to tackle immigration may be driving a drop in migrant encounters.
Back in December U.S. officials met with the president of Mexico in an effort to strike a deal to limit the surge of migrants who reach the U.S. southwest border. President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador agreed to help. Mexico cleared out migrant encampments in Texas border cities.
The Associated Press reported that in the last 10 days of December, Mexico sent at least 22 flights of migrants from the regions of its border with the U.S. to southern cities in Mexico. They also ran removal flights to Venezuela with hundreds of migrants. In December, migrant encounters reached as high as 10,000 per day, but fell to 2,500 per day for illegal crossings by last week.
A Border Patrol chief in the Tucson sector posted figures for migrant encounters in the sector on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. At the beginning of the year migrant encounters in that area dropped to around 13,800 per day, down from a high of 19,400 in December.
House Republicans demand more border security during Texas visit
Democrats, like former Texas House of Representatives member Poncho Nevarez, question the purpose of the GOP members' visit.
