Border Patrol: 70 Percent Drop in Successful Evasions Since Title 42 Ended
would cause a surge in illegal crossings, we explained that Border Patrol’s practice of placing people back on the other side of the border incentivized illegal crossings by giving individuals repeated chances to enter illegally. It also motivated people who would otherwise turn themselves in for asylum to slip in covertly.
Gotaway data have become more reliable over the past decade because border surveillance has increased dramatically from 2005 to 2023. Now, nearly the entire border has some form of electronic surveillance at all times. Moreover, the Obama administration made efforts to systematize the criteria for recording a gotaway to make the measure more consistent and reliable in 2014. Additionally, communication between stations was improved to remove double counting.
CBP also estimates the successful crossing rate using surveys of deportees. It first estimates the total flow of deportees returning to the US border based on surveys conducted by Colegio de la Frontera Norte International Border Survey. It then subtracts the number of deportees that it arrested and assumes the remainder escaped detection. Of course, some do attempt to reenter when they initially indicated no intention to do so, and some do not attempt to reenter when they said they did. CBP has made additional efforts to account for individual characteristics of crossers to resolve some of this problem.
While the model‐based estimates are certainly not perfect, these data show that CBP’s observational data (gotaways) are improving compared to the models. Figure 4 compares the observational apprehension rates to the model‐based rates. It shows that the observational data converged with the model‐based data around 2014. From that point on, the observational gotaway data accounted for between 75 percent and 100 percent of modeled gotaways.
Although the gap between observational and modeled estimates was the largest in 2020 since 2014, observational gotaways still accounted for about 75 percent of modeled gotaways. 2020’s decline in modeled effectiveness likely reflects that people’s intentions changed in response to the pandemic and fewer people tried to enter illegally than the model predicted. There was no observed increase in gotaways during fiscal year 2020, which ended in October (though there was a dramatic increase by December 2020).
The United States has a legitimate interest in regulating the entry of serious criminals and other threats to Americans, and border security is a significant component of that effort. Ending Title 42 improved border security and reduced successful illegal entries. This should force the many members of Congress and the administration who opposed ending Title 42 to rethink their position.
David J. Bier is the associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. This article, originally posted to the Cato Institute website, is published courtesy of the Cato Institute.
