Newswire: 6/20/2020
- In April, the number of migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border plunged 47% compared to the month before. Though this severe drop was due to the pandemic, it continues a longer decline in migration from Mexico and Latin America that began before the outbreak. (Pew Research Center)
- NH: The pandemic has spurred historic drops in migration activity around the world. The decline in border apprehensions in April (-47%) was the biggest one-month percentage decline since at least 2000. Compared to a year before, it was down a whopping 84%.
- But even before the outbreak, the number of apprehensions was already trending downward. From October 2019 to April 2020, it was down 55%, or by 253,654 people, compared with the same period last year. The vast majority of the migrants apprehended at the border are now single adults; after surging in 2019, the share of family units has declined drastically. The migrants’ country of origin has shifted, too: Most are now coming from Mexico. Last year, the majority were from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The pandemic did not create these trends; it accelerated trends that were already in motion.
- Over the past 20 years, apprehensions at the border have generally been declining. While there have been some surges--in 2006, for instance, and in 2019--they only lasted a year before falling again. In the seven months prior to the outbreak, apprehensions had fallen to a fifth of what they were in the 2000s, 1990s, and 1980s. This has been mirrored by a decline in the number of new immigrants as well as the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. (See “The Changing Politics—and Reality—of U.S. Immigration.”)
- Even as migration has declined, the degree to which migrants’ home countries rely on the remittances they send has been increasing. And with the pandemic, these funds are drying up, casting a large shadow on developing countries getting pummeled by the outbreak. Remittances to El Salvador, which relies more heavily on remittances than any other Latin American country, plunged 40% in April. More than 2 in every 10 dollars of El Salvador's national income, amounting to more than $5.6 billion, come from remittances.
- Overall, the World Bank estimates that global remittances will fall 20% this year, with India, Venezuela, and Mexico among the most hard-hit countries. This stands in stark contrast to the 2008 financial crisis when remittances dipped only 5% and recovered quickly.
