The statement: “We have started to see the increase in underage minors go back to April 2020. This is not something that has happened due to the fact that Joe Biden has become president.” – Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso.
PolitiFact rating: Half true. It is accurate to say that the number of children traveling alone to the border has increased since April last year, but in her statement the fact that February saw a record increase in minor minors encountered by border patrol agents.
Escobar also said that these increases are not a result of Joe Biden becoming president. ‘Experts believe that the pull factor created by Biden’s policy change to stop evictions of minors is one of the various factors causing the increase in underage minors.
Discussion
Escobar joined CNN host Jake Tapper on March 14 to defend President Joe Biden’s response to the influx of unaccompanied children on the southern border and shift the blame on the Trump administration.
The number of unaccompanied children encountered by Border Patrol rose sharply earlier this year, from 5,858 in January to 9,457 in February – an increase of 61 percent, according to federal data. This is the largest percentage increase of one month since U.S. Customs and Border Protection began reporting the data in 2010.
“Is this a crisis?” Ask Tapper for Escobar.
“There is no doubt, Jake, that what we are seeing today is a huge challenge,” Escobar replied, adding that the rise is a result of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, which Biden’s government night work “. edit.
‘The increases saw almost a year ago. And that was during the Trump administration. ”
Migration patterns are complex and are driven by numerous factors, in addition to changes in U.S. immigration policy, experts say.
The first part of Escobar’s statement is accurate – the number of underage minors appearing at the border has been increasing since April 2020. But this trend usually follows seasonal migration patterns. Migration numbers usually peak in the spring, usually in May, and decrease in late summer.
But in 2020, the steady rise continued through the winter.
According to Art Arthur, a former immigration judge and a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank advocating low immigration numbers, the migration numbers fell off a cliff in late March 2020. It was then that the Trump administration activated Title 42, a provision of the Public Health and Safety Act of 1944 that allows Border Patrol to expel any immigrant for health and safety reasons, in this case to distribute COVID-19 to to limit the US.
As migration numbers in April 2020 were lower due to title 42, the increase in migrant numbers during the rest of 2020 monthly totals came closer to average levels, Arthur said.
But the steady rise changed in February when U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported the 61 percent rise.
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“It’s a bigger peak than we’ve ever seen in February,” Arthur said.
This happened in the same month when the government in Biden suspended the title 42 only for unaccompanied children, and made it applicable to all other categories of arrested migrants, much to the concern of immigrant advocates.
The increase in underage minors was recorded shortly thereafter after the White House announced the change.
“I can’t identify a single other factor that would indicate that,” Arthur said. “There is no other variable besides that.”
While Arthur highlights the White House’s policy change as a pull factor that was the most important factor in February’s rise, other experts highlight the pressure factors that drive migrants from their countries of origin.
Migrants and migrant children travel to the southern US border for various reasons from their countries of origin – mainly Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador: deteriorating economic conditions due to COVID-19, cartel violence, corruption, natural disasters, agricultural diseases or droughts and, among others , the flags of American aid. These issues have been taken into account in people’s migration decisions for decades.
One of these factors challenged the Central American region in November when two Category 4 hurricanes hit Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala within two weeks. More than 200 people died and millions needed help. The hurricanes exacerbated poverty and increased access to clean water, giving an extra blow to people considering northern migration.
“There are clearly pressure factors coming from all the states, no matter what our policies are,” said Ruth Wasem, a professor of public policy at the University of Texas. And it’s hard to say that migration factors created by liberalized U.S. immigration policies are stronger than the pressure factors that drive migrants away from their countries of origin, she said.
For Wasem, it is no surprise that border authorities report a large number of underage minors after four years of strict immigration policy under the Trump administration, which has revamped the asylum application processes in many ways, reducing the number of asylum seekers entering the US.
But the imminent closure of the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump does not mean migrants have stopped packing their bags for the U.S.
“Trump basically shut down our immigration system and ended the laws on the books,” Wasem said. “So there will be a growing number of people waiting to come, or who were on their way.”
There is little doubt that migrants, and especially young children, are being sent across the border inspired by Biden’s new immigration policy. But Wasem says the hope that inspired Biden’s administration policies among migrants is difficult to measure.
‘Do people come because the thought of Biden’s presidency gives them hope? It can be. But you can not measure it, ”she said.