The number of migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border in December fell 24% from November, the first month-to-month decline since President Joe Biden took office in January.
The drop in arrests of migrants marked the first significant decline this year in border crossings, which have been rising steadily since April 2020. The decrease came as Biden faces a legal challenge over his administration’s decision to end a public health order that made it easier to expel asylum-seekers during the coronavirus pandemic.
U.S. authorities encountered about 147,000 migrants at the border in December, down from about 194,000 in November. The number of encounters includes both apprehensions of migrants trying to cross between border crossings and expulsions of migrants under public health authority known as Title 42.
Overall, U.S. authorities have encountered more than 1.7 million migrants at the border since Biden took office. The last time monthly encounters at the border dropped from one month to the next was in December 2020, when then-President Donald Trump’s administration was still in office.
Biden ended the public health order, known as Title 42, in November. The Trump administration used the order to quickly expel migrants, a practice that led to the relatively low number of arrests in April and May 2020 before arrests started rising sharply.
A federal appeals court late Wednesday refused to lift a ruling forcing the Biden administration to reimplement the policy, a decision that will likely lead to the reinstatement of the expulsions soon.
The Title 42 expulsions have drawn fire from immigration advocates who say they put migrants at risk of being harmed in dangerous Mexican border cities and prevent them from seeking U.S. asylum. Administration officials have said they expel migrants quickly because of the pandemic, but they agree that it is an imperfect solution.
The Biden administration has mostly exempted unaccompanied children from the expulsions, and it has been allowing families with young children to enter the U.S. and pursue their immigration cases in court.
Administration officials say they have been looking for alternatives to the expulsions and have been in talks with the Mexican government to try to find ways to let asylum-seekers into the U.S. while preventing a mass arrival of migrants that could overwhelm border facilities.