Migrant crossings at US border drop to lowest level in two years

Republicans and Democrats have criticised president’s border regime

Border Patrol agents encountered less than 130,000 undocumented migrants at the southern border in January, the lowest level in two years, according to statistics from the Department of Homeland Security.

Overall border crossings fell from a record monthly high of 250,000 in December to 156,000, according to the data.

The US-Mexico border situation is likely to factor in the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Mr Biden visited the US-Mexico border in January after months of criticism from Republicans, who held the first in a series of hearings in the House last week on “Biden’s border crisis.”

Despite the brief dip, overall, monthly border control encounters are near record highs set in the early 2000s, though trends have shifted in recent years, and now most people crossing the US-Mexico border aren’t from Mexico or the so-called Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Instead, according to the Pew Research Center, many migrants are fleeing political crises in places like Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela.

Democrats have also criticised the president for retaining many of the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies dramatically curtailing the right to asylum.

In January, Mr Biden announced people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti wouldn’t be allowed to apply for asylum if they crossed the Mexican border outside of official ports of entry.

“My message is this,” Mr Biden said at the time. “If you’re trying to leave Cuba, Nicaragua or Haiti, or have agreed to begin a journey to America, do not, do not just show up at the border.”

Later that month, a group of 70 Democrats in the House and Senate sent the president a letter, slamming such decisions.

“We encourage your administration to stand by your commitment to restore and protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees,” the lawmakers wrote, adding, “We are therefore distressed by the deeply inconsistent choice to expand restrictions on asylum seekers.”

The administration has continued to rely on Title 42, a Trump-era policy that used public health law to turn away asylum seekers which was implemented over the advice of public health officials.

“The Biden administration should be taking steps to restore asylum law at ports of entry,” Eleanor Acer, the director of the refugee protection program at Human Rights First, recently told the New York Times, “not doubling down on cruel and counterproductive policies from the Trump playbook.”