After a record-smashing month in December that saw more than 249,000 illegal aliens cross the border, January's number of 124,000 seems positively benign.
It's actually not. That number might be down from the record number of illegals who crossed into the U.S. in recent months, but it is nowhere close to being "under control."
The reason for the smaller number of illegals crossing into the U.S. has little to do with anything Joe Biden has done or is doing. What's contributing to the lower numbers of illegals coming to the U.S. is Gov. Greg Abbott's (R-Texas) "Operation Lone Star," which has plugged a gaping hole in the border near Eagle Pass, Texas. And the Mexican government has begun enforcing its own immigration laws for a change.
Eagle Pass is where the biggest drop in border crossings occurred. Abbott's efforts to make it difficult for illegals to cross by putting up razor wire (it's still there despite a Supreme Court ruling saying that the wire has to go), and the Texas National Guard commandeering Shelby Park near the crossing, preventing border patrol agents from using the park to process illegal aliens.
“What you have is this magnet,” Mike Banks, Texas’ border czar, said. “You’re basically saying, `Cross the river right here. Get across and we’ll process immediately and release you.’ So again, that’s a pull factor. So we’ve taken that pull factor away.”
Mexico has been forcing migrants from freight trains that they sometimes use to cross the country to get closer to the U.S. border. Immigration officers in Mexico also have been busing migrants to that country’s southern border and flying some back to their countries.
That enforcement effort began after a visit from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Mexico City on Dec. 28.
Mexican border states such as Coahuila partnered with Mexico’s federal government. By January, members of Mexico’s military and national guard were patrolling the banks of the Rio Grande. Officers filled buses with migrants and drove them away from Piedras Negras, which is on the Mexican side of the river across from Eagle Pass.
History tells us that this effort by Mexico is only temporary. Basically, it's designed to get Biden and other American presidents off the back of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. It won't last long, and the flow of illegals will pick up toward the end of spring.
The AP reports that some of the ebb and flow of illegals is seasonal. The wire service reports "Since 2021, crossings on the southern border increase by an average of 40% from January to March, according to federal data from the last three years."
Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights organization, says that rumors of the border being closed in December partially led to a dip in crossings. Isacson also pointed to a seasonal ebb in crossings.
“It seems to be a combination of weather (rainy in the south, bitter cold at night at the border), plus people don’t like to leave home during the end-of-year holidays unless they have absolutely no choice,” he said.
Immigration experts are saying that we can expect another surge soon.
Casa Alitas, a Catholic agency that runs several shelters in Tucson, said numbers have been steadily climbing again.
In October, November and December, the shelter network was receiving about 1,000 migrants each day. That number plummeted to an average of about 500 daily in the first three weeks of January. This week, numbers were in the 1,000 range again.
Diego Piña Lopez, the agency’s director, said the numbers had gone up “slowly but surely.”
It's a good thing that Biden didn't make a big thing about the January numbers. He would have been laughed out of the press conference.
That's why his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, will talk about the numbers. Everyone already laughs at her.
