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    • Kamala Harris confirms border immigration has been cut in half
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    Kamala Harris confirms border immigration has been cut in half

    Umito Posted on

    Statement: “To date, we have reduced the flow of immigration by more than half.”

    Immigration was one of the most difficult issues for Vice President Kamala Harris to address on the campaign trail; his opponent, Donald Trump, has repeatedly highlighted an increase in illegal immigration under his presidency and that of President Joe Biden.

    But at a recent CNN town hall in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Harris presented an optimistic data point.

    “To date, we have reduced the flow of immigration by more than half,” Harris told moderator Anderson Cooper on Wednesday.

    She’s right. Depending on when you start counting, the drop is well over half.

    The night of the town hall meeting, Harris’ campaign referred PolitiFact to official federal government data on encounters at the U.S. southwest border with Mexico.

    Meetings There are occasions when immigration officials stop someone at the border. The same person can be stopped more than once and counted more than once, and the encounters do not mean the person is allowed to enter the United States. But to understand migration at the U.S. border, encounters are a standard measure.

    Border Patrol encounters with migrants between ports of entry at the southwest land border peaked in December 2023 at about 250,000. In September, the latest month for which data is available and the end of fiscal year 2024, there were approximately 54,000 encounters. That represents a 78% drop, or more than half, in U.S. Customs and Border Protection. data watch.

    If we start from a different month, the drop remains significant. From September 2023 to September 2024, this number fell from approximately 219,000 to 54,000, a drop of 75.3%. From January 2024 to September 2024, this number fell from approximately 124,200 to 54,000, a drop of 56.5%.

    U.S. immigration experts have said it is difficult to isolate unique causes for changes in the number of arrivals at the border, but a Executive action by Biden which limits immigrants’ ability to seek asylum at the southwest border took effect in June and has likely had an effect.

    “Biden’s agenda relies on reducing asylum eligibility for migrants who cross the border illegally, expanding the use of legal migration routes, and encouraging Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica and other regional partners to increase their migration controls and enforcement,” the migration policy states. Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, wrote in a recent analysis.

    Taken together, the group added, “these policies marked the beginning of a new era of migration management in response to unprecedented changes in flows over the past three and a half years. These efforts represent new and innovative approaches to migration management, although they are subject to litigation and change.

    Mexico’s efforts to strengthen enforcement, driven in part by U.S. pressure, have also helped reduce immigration, experts say.

    Biden and former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador spoke multiple times from the end of 2023 and published statements on joint efforts to combat immigration, fentanyl and firearms trafficking.

    U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken also visited Mexico in December to meet with their Mexican counterparts.

    David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told PolitiFact in June that it is reasonable to attribute border crossing denials to Mexico’s actions, with one caveat.

    “Mexico is making unprecedented arrests,” Bier said. “I think this is unsustainable because even if Mexico arrests them and sends them to southern Mexico, it does not deport them to their country of origin. This means that it is very likely that they end up going to the United States because they’re still in Mexico, and they don’t have much to do there other than keep trying to reach the United States.”

    It is uncertain whether this decline will continue, as migrants and migrant smugglers “have proven to be very adaptable to changes in policy, processes, operations and even infrastructure,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, senior adviser for immigration and border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank. reservoir, told PolitiFact in June. “We have not seen a lasting decrease in arrivals following policy changes in the past.”

    PolitiFact’s decision

    Harris said: “To date, we have reduced the flow of immigration by more than half. »

    The extent of the decline varies depending on which month you start counting, but over the past year or so, the number of encounters along the U.S. southwest border has declined, from 57 percent. at 78%.

    We rate the statement as true.

    PolitiFact Staff Writer Maria Ramirez Uribe contributed to this report.

    Our sources

    This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Kamala Harris confirms border immigration has been cut in half

    Umito
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