San Diego County has become the busiest corridor for illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border as popular migration routes have continued to shift west from Arizona and Texas, according to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
Last month, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered 37,370 migrants along the 60 miles of border that spans the San Diego sector, a 49% increase from April 2023. While the Tucson sector – the busiest along the border until last month – still tops the rankings. Despite the increasing number of arrests so far this fiscal year, April’s turnaround is not surprising to those who have witnessed the increasing number of migrant arrivals in San Diego since the fall .
“There’s a certain notion that crossing San Diego is less risky,” said Pedro Ríos, director of the U.S.-Mexico border program at the American Friends Service Committee, whose organization has been providing humanitarian aid to migrants for months arriving awaiting processing between the United States and Mexico. two fences near the San Ysidro border crossing.
Some migrants told him they preferred to come to San Diego because of information they had received from other family members or acquaintances who had made the trip to the United States. Others tried to cross through another border town, but when they were intercepted by Mexican agents, they decided to try again from here.
But the biggest impact, he and others said, was Texas’ multibillion-dollar effort to secure its border with Mexico. All Border Patrol Texas sectors showed a decrease in encounters last month compared to April 2023.
Texas Governor Greg Abbot took credit for it on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Thanks to our strong resistance, illegal crossings continue to move to other border states – with California now the epicenter of Biden’s border crisis,” he wrote earlier this month.
While Border Patrol arrests increased nearly 11 percent from March to April in San Diego, they decreased overall by 6 percent on the southwest border, the data shows.
“CBP continues to allocate resources and personnel to impacted areas along the border to ensure the safe, timely and orderly processing of individuals to maximize expedited removals,” said Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller , in a press release.
The view from Colonia Soler in Tijuana, where a Border Patrol vehicle drives along the U.S. side of the border fence.
(Alejandro Tamayo/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
He credited the increased crackdown with countering previous spring trends of increased illegal migration, but vowed to “remain vigilant in the face of continuing changes in migration patterns.”
Tijuana officials agreed that the situation in Texas has forced migrants to seek new routes. Enrique Lucero, director of the Migrant Affairs Office in Tijuana, said they expected the number of migrants to increase locally.
“Many asylum seekers are arriving in Tijuana,” Lucero said. “They end up paying smugglers. It’s out of control. »
The strong pace continued this month. From May 1 to 14, approximately 16,300 arrests were recorded in the San Diego Sector, according to figures shared Wednesday by Sector Chief Patricia McGurk-Daniel on X.
County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who has pushed for the federal government to reduce illegal crossings, called San Diego “the new epicenter of migrants and illegal immigration.”
“Smugglers have identified California, particularly the San Diego border sector, as the path of least resistance for illegal immigration,” he said.
Mexico has implemented measures to try to deter irregular crossings to the United States. South of the border, Mexican authorities have installed a chain-link fence along a stretch of the Tijuana River canal, in addition to checkpoints in places where there are large numbers of crossings. Mexico is also increasingly busing migrants to cities further south, such as Tapachula.
A member of the Mexican army monitors an inspection camp set up by the National Migration Institute February 5, 2024 in Ejido Jacume, Baja California, near the Jacumba hot springs. The checkpoints were created in hopes of deterring migrants from entering the United States.
(Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
But migrants continue to pour in, particularly through remote areas of the border near the Jacumba hot springs, where they slip through gaps in the barrier or find a way over or over it. Then they wait in the desert for the Border Patrol to pick them up, process them and release them into San Diego County.
In April, they came from all over the world, very few from Mexico or Central America.
“This is the place where we were told,” Jormary, a Colombian migrant who asked to be identified only by her first name for her safety, said Thursday to explain why she crossed the border in San Diego. Others have said in recent weeks that they followed the advice of people who had already encountered him or heard him on social media.
The situation was different in the 1980s and 1990s, when San Diego led all sectors in these types of border crossings. At the time, migrants crossing ports of entry were fleeing the Border Patrol.
After 524,231 arrests in 1995, the numbers began to decline following the implementation of Operation Gatekeeper, which emphasized a strategy using manpower, technology and multiple levels of fixed posts to deter arrests. illegal crossings. Around the same time, a new border fence made of Vietnam War-era helicopter landing pads was installed in the area.
More than 60 migrants arrive at a camp just off Interstate 8 while waiting to be processed by the U.S. Border Patrol March 15, 2024, outside Jacumba Hot Springs. People came from Pakistan, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Honduras, Egypt, Somalia and other countries.
(Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Ríos, who has worked as an immigrant rights advocate in San Diego since the 1990s, noted how much things have changed since then. “Today, migrants who cross the border are not trying to escape the authorities,” he stressed. “They are now surrendering with the idea that they can start an asylum procedure. »
The number of arrests increased again in San Diego after 2020, slowly moving away from years of increased activity in the Rio Grande Valley.
“This is how migration happens,” Lucero said. “There are times when the numbers go down and other times when they go up. »
The numbers locally have been noticeably higher since the fall, causing aid groups and the county to struggle to provide for the tens of thousands of migrants who have been released from Border Patrol custody. The vast majority do not plan to stay in San Diego but are headed to destinations across the United States, where they will then file for asylum.
The county Board of Supervisors is expected to vote Tuesday on a plan that would continue moving toward a new migrant transitional day center, funded with $19.6 million in newly obtained federal funding.
The county previously allocated $6 million for a temporary migrant center — a place where migrants could eat, get resources for the next leg of their journey and charge their cellphones — but it was forced to close earlier than planned due to lack of funding. As a result, the Border Patrol has resumed daily releases of adult migrants at a public transportation hub in South San Diego, where they are met by humanitarian groups to provide assistance.
On Thursday, a group of migrants waited at the transit center for their loved ones who were still in Border Patrol custody. Jormary, the Colombian, said she was released on Monday and has since returned to the police station every day to wait for her partner. With nowhere to go, she said she initially slept at the airport, but recently found shelter.
Saida, left, and Jormary, both Colombians, and a dozen other migrants wait at the Iris Avenue transit center on Thursday.
(Ana Ramirez/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
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