Under U.S. President Joe Biden, migrant camps along the U.S.-Mexico border have ballooned as most pathways to asylum have shut down.
The Biden administration is working rapidly to clear out mostly Haitian migrants from a makeshift camp that sprung up in southern Texas in recent days. At its height, some 14,000 people had converged under an international bridge to Mexico, with families hastily constructing shelters out of reeds and sticks along the banks of the Rio Grande. Food, water and supplies have been scarce for the migrants – also from Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries – as they wait for U.S. border officials to process them. By Thursday morning, U.S. officials had moved thousands of people to other locations, but around 3,600 migrants remained according to local authorities. Many hope to claim asylum in the United States after fleeing desperate situations in their homelands. Instead, hundreds have been loaded onto planes and summarily returned to Haiti, which is reeling from a political crisis and a series of natural disasters, while others have been allowed to stay in the U.S. to pursue their immigration cases. Many Haitians at the border said they first fled to countries like Chile and Brazil but decided to head north when they encountered discrimination and dwindling opportunities farther south.
Biden, a Democrat, took office in January 2021 promising to reverse many of the hardline policies of his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump. But Biden kept in place a sweeping public health policy, which started in March 2020 under Trump at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The policy, known as Title 42, allows many migrants caught at the border to be quickly expelled without a chance to claim asylum.
With most ports of entry closed to asylum seekers, thousands of desperate migrants have also been stranded in Mexico for months in dangerous border towns, like Tijuana and Reynosa. The growth of those encampments – along with the newest one in Del Rio, Texas, across from Mexico’s Ciudad Acuña – can be clearly seen in satellite imagery.
Locations of migrant encampments
CA
AZ
NM
TX
Del Rio/
Cuidad Acuna
Tijuana
MEXICO
Reynosa
Locations of migrant encampments
CA
AZ
NM
Tijuana
TX
Del Rio/
Cuidad Acuna
MEXICO
Reynosa
Locations of migrant encampments
CA
AZ
NM
Tijuana
TX
Del Rio/
Cuidad Acuna
MEXICO
Reynosa
The Del Rio camp is creating urgent challenges for the Biden administration. U.S. authorities are investigating an incident where a Border Patrol agent on horseback was filmed trying to block Haitian migrants wading back and forth across the river as they sought to bring food and supplies from Mexico to people on the U.S. side. Hundreds have now decided to stay on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande in Ciudad Acuna, trying to find shelter under tarps and cardboard boxes.
In Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, a migrant encampment started growing in February and now has between 1,500 and 1,700 people, according to a Mexican government official, with hundreds of children and infants living in tents and under tarps sprawled out on a concrete plaza just hundreds of yards from the U.S. border. Most of the migrants there are Mexican and Central American.
US Customs and
Border Protection
USA
MEXICO
Cars waiting
to cross border
About
250 yds
Tijuana Customs
Tent city
with approx.
1,700 migrants
Area of detail
US Customs and
Border Protection
USA
Entry to Mexico
MEXICO
Cars waiting
to cross border
About
250 yds
Tijuana Customs
Tent city
with approx.
1,700 migrants
Area of detail
US Customs and
Border Protection
USA
Entry to Mexico
MEXICO
Cars waiting
to cross border
About
250 yds
Tijuana Customs
Tent city
with approx.
1,700 migrants
Area of detail
US Customs and
Border Protection
Entry to Mexico
USA
MEXICO
Cars waiting
to cross border
About
250 yds
Tijuana Customs
Tent city
with approx.
1,700 migrants
Area of detail
US Customs and
Border Protection
Entry to Mexico
USA
MEXICO
Cars waiting
to cross border
About
250 yds
Tijuana Customs
Tent city
with approx.
1,700 migrants
Area of detail
Reynosa
In Reynosa, just across the border from McAllen, Texas, there are currently around 2,000 mostly Central American and Haitian migrants camping out in a public plaza and hundreds more in local migrant shelters, according to humanitarian group Global Response Management. Local officials and migrant advocates say the camp is unsanitary and has drawn drug gang members looking to recruit desperate migrants as well as smugglers promising expensive illegal crossings.
April 20, 2021
July 23, 2021
McAllen, TX
McAllen, TX
USA
USA
MEXICO
MEXICO
Reynosa
Reynosa
Plaza de la
Republica
with approx.
2,000 migrants
Plaza de la
Republica
April 20, 2021
July 23, 2021
McAllen, TX
McAllen, TX
USA
USA
MEXICO
MEXICO
Reynosa
Reynosa
Plaza de la
Republica
Plaza de la
Republica
with approx.
2,000 migrants
April 20, 2021
July 23, 2021
McAllen, TX
McAllen, TX
USA
USA
MEXICO
MEXICO
Reynosa
Reynosa
Plaza de la
Republica
Plaza de la
Republica
with approx.
2,000 migrants
April 20, 2021
July 23, 2021
McAllen, TX
McAllen, TX
USA
USA
MEXICO
MEXICO
Reynosa
Reynosa
Plaza de la
Republica
Plaza de la
Republica
with approx.
2,000 migrants
The first migrant camps on the Mexican side of the border appeared when the Trump administration implemented a controversial policy known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, in 2019. Under the policy, asylum seekers were given U.S. court dates and then sent back to Mexico to wait for months, sometimes years, as their hearings progressed. Biden ended the MPP program early in his presidency, saying in a press conference it led to people “sitting on the edge of the Rio Grande in muddy circumstances with not enough to eat.” The largest Trump-era camp in Matamoros, Mexico, was dismantled after the Biden administration processed the majority of those with pending MPP cases into the United States to await their hearings.
Title 8 vs. Title 42 and Zero Tolerance
Title 8 immigration processing was standard practice at the border before Title 42 was put in place and is still being applied to some migrants who are not eligible for expulsion. It allows migrants seeking humanitarian protection to plead their case before an immigration judge, a process that can take years because of large backlogs in the court system.
Under Title 42, a U.S. Centers for Disease Control order, the government can rapidly expel migrants for public health reasons during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most are not given a chance to apply for U.S. asylum.
‘Zero Tolerance’ refers to a policy implemented during the Trump administration which called for the criminal prosecution of border crossers and led to the separation of thousands of parents from their children before it was ended in the face of public pressure and legal challenges.
Single Adults
The number of single adults arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has steadily risen this year. In August alone, border patrol encountered close to 100,000 single adults, who made up around half of all apprehensions that month.
Migrants processed under Title 8
Migrants expelled under Title 42
Jan 2019
MPP begins
120k
June 2019
MPP expands
to entire border
100
80
March 2020
Title 42 begins
60
40
20
0
Oct. 2017
July 2021
Jan 2021
Biden takes office
120k
Jan 2019
MPP begins
100
June 2019
MPP expands
to entire border
80
60
March 2020
Title 42 begins
40
20
0
April - July 2018
Zero tolerance program
Jan 2021
Biden takes office
July 2021
Oct. 2017
120k
Jan 2019
MPP begins
100
June 2019
MPP expands
to entire border
80
60
March 2020
Title 42 begins
40
20
0
April - July 2018
Zero tolerance program
Oct. 2017
July 2021
Jan 2021
Biden takes office
Recidivism
Under Title 42, nearly all single adults are rapidly expelled to Mexico after crossing the border. Some people say they have tried crossing multiple times. U.S. officials say Title 42 has led to increased recidivism.
PERCENT OF MIGRANTS CROSSING
BORDER MULTIPLE TIMES
March 2020
Title 42 begins
Through
June 2021
34%
30%
25
20
Jan 2019
MPP begins
15
10
5
0
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
PERCENT OF MIGRANTS CROSSING
BORDER MULTIPLE TIMES
March 2020
Title 42 begins
Through
June 2021
34%
30%
25
20
Jan 2019
MPP begins
15
10
5
0
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
March 2020
Title 42 begins
PERCENT OF MIGRANTS CROSSING
BORDER MULTIPLE TIMES
Through
June 2021
34%
30%
25
20
Jan 2019
MPP begins
15
10
5
0
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
Families
The number of families coming to the border grew slowly throughout 2020 and began increasing more rapidly in January 2021 after President Biden took office. However, the number of families apprehended this year has remained consistently lower than the same period in 2019, the last time there was a major jump in apprehensions.
The U.S. government has been expelling fewer migrant families over time as some local Mexican authorities refused to take back younger children, arguing they did not have the capacity to accept them.
Migrants processed under Title 8
Migrants expelled under Title 42
Jan 2019
MPP begins
120k
June 2019
MPP expands
to entire border
100
80
March 2020
Title 42 begins
60
40
20
0
Jan 2021
Biden takes office
July 2021
Oct. 2017
120k
Jan 2019
MPP begins
100
June 2019
MPP expands
to entire border
80
60
March 2020
Title 42 begins
40
20
0
April - July 2018
Zero tolerance program
Jan 2021
Biden takes office
Oct. 2017
July 2021
120k
Jan 2019
MPP begins
100
June 2019
MPP expands
to entire border
80
60
March 2020
Title 42 begins
40
20
0
April - July 2018
Zero tolerance program
Oct. 2017
July 2021
Jan 2021
Biden takes office
Unaccompanied minors
In February, President Biden exempted unaccompanied children from the Title 42 expulsion policy and his administration grappled early on with a large spike in kids found to be crossing the border alone. There are now thousands of unaccompanied children in U.S. government custody waiting to be reunited with parents, relatives or other sponsors in the United States. Some parents, distraught after their families’ expulsions to Mexico, have resorted to sending their children across by themselves, in the hopes they can find safety on the other side.