Border securityThe Situation at the U.S.-Mexico Border Is a Crisis – but Is It New?

By Randi Mandelbaum

Published 2 April 2021

The media create the impression that there is an unprecedented crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, with droves of children arriving alone, as well as families flooding to the border. There is a crisis. But as a law professor who studies child migration, I can tell you that it’s nothing new.

The media create the impression that there is an unprecedented crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, with droves of children arriving alone, as well as families flooding to the border.

There is a crisis.

But as a law professor who studies child migration, I can tell you that it’s nothing new.

Children and families have been fleeing to the U.S. for years, particularly from Mexico and the so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Yet aspects of the current situation are different from the past. And whether more individuals are attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border “than have been in the last 20 years,” as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas predicted, remains to be seen.

The situation is best explained by looking at the number of migrants who have arrived at the border, as reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a law enforcement agency that is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Customs and Border Protection puts arriving noncitizens in three categories: unaccompanied children, families and single adults. Children are designated as unaccompanied if they are under the age of 18 and arrive at a U.S. border without lawful status and without a parent or legal guardian.

The numbers of children like these and families have been steadily increasing in recent years. Examining those numbers puts the current circumstances at the U.S.-Mexico border into context.

A steady Stream
Except for fiscal year 2020, which started on Oct. 1, 2019, the number of children and families migrating to the U.S. has been escalating since 2013, with highs in 2014 and 2019, and a slight dip in 2015. Overall, the number of arriving unaccompanied children has been above 40,000 every year since 2014. In most yearsit was above 50,000. For arriving families, the numbers have hovered around 70,000 each year, with surges in 2018 and especially 2019.

Scholars of migration look to many “push and pull factors” that draw migrant children to the U.S. border. These include family and community violence, sexual assault, government corruption, agricultural disease, drought, discrimination against indigenous populations and extreme poverty.

The vast majority of the migrating families, and almost all (95%) of the unaccompanied children, are coming from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

So is anything different about what is taking place now? Why are government officials like Mayorkas calling the situation “difficult” and “complicated?”

There are three interrelated issues to watch.