Shelters on the southern U.S. border and in some major cities that were inundated with migrants a year ago say they are seeing sharp declines in migrants seeking refuge, some reporting drops as high as 60% in just the past few months.
In July, the White House said that the number of migrants apprehended at the southwest border had dropped 50% in the month since President Joe Biden’s executive action in June limiting asylum claims went into effect. Now the effect of Biden’s order is being felt by the emergency shelter infrastructure that has developed over the past few years to manage what was a record surge of migrants.
The long Texas border with Mexico was one of the busiest for migrant crossings a year ago. But in Del Rio, Texas, Tiffany Burrow of the Val Verde Humanitarian Border Coalition said the flow of migrants needing shelter is now “drastically, drastically less.”
At the Rescue Mission of El Paso this week, there were about 80 to 90 people using beds, compared with about 200 the same week a year ago, CEO Blake Barrow said. At the nearby Annunciation House shelter, Executive Director Ruben Garcia said he had received only seven migrants needing beds from the Border Patrol that day and 25 people the day before — a drastic decrease from last year, when the Border Patrol would send migrants in the hundreds to shelters like his.
But Garcia said the drop wasn’t all due to Biden’s executive action.
“We started seeing a much clearer reduction after Biden’s executive order went into effect,” he said, “but we were already seeing a decline because of Mexico’s enforcement. I think if Mexico stopped its energetic enforcement, it would make Biden’s executive order very hard to enforce.”
After negotiations with the Biden administration, the government of Mexico under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his like-minded successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, who takes office on Oct. 1, has stepped up efforts to stem the flow of migrants northward through Mexican territory. Data from Mexico’s National Institute of Migration shows how critical Mexico’s enforcement role has been in blocking, interdicting and, in some cases, deporting U.S.-bound migrants.
The Mexican government’s actions have been especially important in lowering the total of non-Mexican migrants reaching the U.S. as the number of people from other countries trying to reach the U.S. via Mexico has soared. In June, the latest month for which National Institute of Migration data is available, the country tracked 121,536 encounters with northbound migrants from countries outside of Mexico, like Guatemala and Venezuela, compared with 58,251 in June 2023.
Increased enforcement by Mexico and the effect of the Biden executive action can be seen in the shelters on the southern side of the border, as well.
A shelter operator in Nogales, Mexico, the twin city of Nogales, Arizona, said he now gets about 60 to 100 U.S-bound migrants a day, down by 80% compared with last year.
In Matamoros, just across from Brownsville, Texas, pastor Abraham Barberi frequently brings food and water to migrant camps. He said the number of occupants in the once-sprawling camps is down to just 25 migrants, with 400 more migrants in a shelter nearby.
That’s a sharp decline from 2023. “Last year around this time, the refugee camp had around 2,000 to 3,000,” he said.
He said increased reliance on the U.S. government’s CBP One app, which migrants can use to apply for asylum without entering the U.S., has contributed to the decline. “I think now people think, ‘Well, I don’t have to go all the way to the border, I don’t have to cross the river illegally,’” he said.
From January 2023 to July 2024, an estimated 188,500 migrants have used the CBP One app to make appointments at U.S. ports of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
In U.S. border cities outside Texas and in cities far north of the border, migrant populations have also plunged.
In Tucson, Arizona, George Rushing, who runs Casa Alitas Welcome Center, which houses children and families, said that since Biden’s executive action, his shelter has had a 60% drop in residents. A spokesperson for the city said on-demand contracts with hotels to house migrants are no longer being activated.
In Pima County, which includes Tucson, the migrant shelter population in early June was 3,751. By mid-July, it had dropped to 913.
In Chicago, the total population has gone from more than 13,000 in February to 5,594 in August. Some of that is because of the city’s decision to evict migrants from shelters after a set period, as well as resettlement to other places and migrants’ finding their own housing.
Declines are similar in Denver, where nonprofit leaders now point to a “drastic drop” in arrivals. About a year ago, the number of migrants receiving city services, such as shelter or travel assistance, was about 600; then it surged to more than 3,700. As of this week, it had dropped to about 230. The city closed its last hotel shelter in June but has left other sites open for new arrivals.
“We have transitioned from emergency response to sustainability because some of these people have chosen to make Denver their home,” said Yoli Casas, who teaches resettlement classes at her nonprofit ViVe Wellness as part of the city’s pilot program to convert 800 asylum-seekers into a viable work force once they’re legally allowed to work.
Shelter populations in other cities haven’t declined as sharply.
In San Diego, the flow of migrants has fallen from 1,596 arrivals per week last August to 1,100 per week, said a spokesperson for the Jewish Family Service of San Diego, which runs the city shelter network.
In New York the migrant population in citywide shelters remains steady, at 64,300, down just 1,000 from a few months ago, according to Kat Capossela, spokesperson for the city comptroller.
Josh Goldfein, who runs the Homeless Rights Project at New York’s Legal Aid Society, said the city has a “right to shelter” law, unlike other cities, where shelters can just shut down to lower the population. “Also, historically New York is New York. People are going to stay here because they have gotten integrated into the economy.”
In places that have experienced drops in their migrant populations, meanwhile, some shelter operators say they’re waiting to see whether the temporary lull persists after November’s U.S. elections.
“I think what we are seeing now is going to remain for the next couple of months,” said Garcia of Annunciation House. He also noted, however, that while the numbers are now “really, really low,” the factors driving migration and the demographics of those heading north haven’t changed.
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