Cubans and Nicaraguans increase the number of illegal border crossings

In October, the third-highest month of Joe Biden’s presidency, U.S. officials stopped migrants more than 230,000 times at the Mexican border due to an increase in arrivals from Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, and other nations.

According to data published late Monday, fewer Venezuelans arrived after the Biden administration imposed additional asylum limitations on Oct. 12. However, rising foreign immigration more than made up for that reduction.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, authorities stopped migrants 230,678 times in October, up 1.4% from 227,547 in September and the most since May.

With the greatest migration from the Caribbean island to the United States since the Mariel boatlift in 1980, Cubans surpassed Venezuelans to become the second-largest nationality behind Mexicans.

28,848 stops of Cubans were made, an increase of 10% over September. U.S. officials, who came in Havana on Monday for discussions with Cuban authorities on migration, are deeply concerned by their presence.

Venezuelans were the third-largest nationality after Oct. 12, when Mexico started accepting Venezuelans who enter the U.S. illegally and are expelled under a Trump-era rule that denies the right to seek asylum on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. Flows decreased after Mexico started accepting these expelled Venezuelans. According to CBP, Venezuelan arrivals decreased from roughly 1,100 per day before the new limitations to about 300 per day by the end of October.

Next to Venezuelans, Nicaraguans were the fourth-largest nationality. 20,917 times were stopped, an increase of 15% from September.

The statistics were made public two days following Chris Magnus’s forced resignation as head of the country’s biggest police unit. Less than a year had passed since the former police chief of Tucson, Arizona, took over.

According to Troy Miller, acting CBP commissioner, “encounters of asylum seekers from Cuba and Nicaragua escaping their totalitarian governments continue to be at a historic high.” As millions leave tyranny, corruption, violence, and poverty, this highlights the issue that the hemisphere is now facing.

Less migrants traveled from Honduras and Guatemala, two nations that have consistently sent substantial numbers, while more came from other continents.

17,195 stops of Colombians were made, the fifth-highest number and a 25% increase from September. Russians were stopped 3,879 times during the conflict in Ukraine, an increase of 48% from September.

Under the pandemic-related asylum ban known as Title 42, nearly 80,000 migrants were expulsed in October, bringing the total number of expulsions since March 2000 to more than 2.4 million. The nationalities that Mexico accepts have seen the rule applied the most frequently. Mexico also accepts residents from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and most recently, Venezuela.

Miniechat

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