The numbers crunchers at the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage have cleared up the massive misapprehension in its own paper and throughout the mainstream media about the so-called “surge” at the border. We can only hope that the employees of the Washington Post, the NY Times and all the networks read the column. They have been abominable on this story so far:
We looked at data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to see whether there’s a “crisis” — or even a “surge,” as many news outlets have characterized it. We analyzed monthly CBP data from 2012 to now and found no crisis or surge that can be attributed to Biden administration policies. Rather, the current increase in apprehensions fits a predictable pattern of seasonal changes in undocumented immigration combined with a backlog of demand because of 2020’s coronavirus border closure.
It’s not a surge. It’s the usual seasonal increase.
The CBP reports monthly data on how many migrants its agents apprehend at the southern border, including unaccompanied minors. The figure below shows the most recent data the CBP has made publicly available.
As the blue line shows, the CBP has recorded a 28 percent increase in migrants apprehended from January to February 2021, from 78,442 to 100,441. News outlets, pundits and politicians have been calling this a “surge” and a “crisis.”AD
But as you can see, the CBP’s numbers reveal that undocumented immigration is seasonal, shifting upward this time of year. During fiscal year 2019, under the Trump administration, total apprehensions increased 31 percent during the same period, a bigger jump than we’re seeing now. We’re comparing fiscal year 2021 to 2019 because the pandemic changed the pattern in 2020. In 2018, the increase is about 25 percent from February to March — somewhat smaller but still pronounced.
But was 2019 an aberration? In the figure below, we combine data from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2020 to show the cumulative total number of apprehensions for each month over these eight years. As you can see, migrants start coming when winter ends and the weather gets a bit warmer. We see a regular increase not just from January to February, but from February to March, March to April, and April to May — and then a sharp drop-off, as migrants stop coming in the hotter summer months when the desert is deadly. That means we should expect decreases from May to June and June to July.
What we’re seeing, in other words, isn’t a surge or crisis, but a predictable seasonal shift. When the numbers drop again in June and July, policymakers may be tempted to claim that their deterrence policies succeeded. But that will just be the usual seasonal drop.
So why are we seeing more migrants so far in 2021
The CBP has indeed reported apprehending more migrants in February 2021 than in the same month in previous years. But that too doesn’t mean it’s a surge or a crisis. In the first figure, above, the blue trend line for fiscal year 2021 is above the orange trend line for fiscal year 2019. But 2020 was the pandemic, when movement dropped dramatically. Countries around the world closed their borders. Here in the United States, the Trump administration invoked Title 42, a provision from the 1944 Public Health Act, to summarily expel migrants attempting to enter the United States without proper documentation.
In other words, in fiscal year 2021, it appears that migrants are continuing to enter the United States in the same numbers as in fiscal year 2019 — plus the pent-up demand from people who would have come in fiscal year 2020, but for the pandemic. That’s visible in the first figure, earlier, in which the blue trend line for the five months of data available for fiscal year 2021 (October, November, December, January and February) neatly reflects the trend line for fiscal year 2019 — plus the difference between fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2019.
This suggests that Title 42 expulsions delayed prospective migrants rather than deterred them — and they’re arriving now.
That would be consistent with nearly three decades of research in political science. Much of this research has been done since President Bill Clinton’s administration ran Operation Gatekeeper, which tried to keep out migrants by increasing funding and staff for border enforcement. Scholars consistently find that border security policies do not necessarily deter migration; rather, they delay migrants’ decisions to travel, and change the routes they take.
Reassessing our understanding of undocumented immigration
So have Biden administration policies caused a crisis at the southern border? Evidence suggests not. The Trump administration oversaw a record in apprehensions in fiscal year 2019, before the pandemic shut the border. This year looks like the usual seasonal increase plus migrants who would have come last year, but could not.
Focusing on month-to-month differences in apprehensions is misleading; given seasonal patterns, each month should be considered in relation to the same month in previous years. Knowing those patterns, policymakers may be better able to plan, prepare and to manage the border.
I shouldn’t be shocked that the media has mishandled this story so badly. It is exactly how I would have expected them to deal with it in the past. I guess I just thought it was possible that they would have more discretion after what we just went through the past five years but I was wrong. The Republicans fed them this storyline and they ate it up, apparently having learned absolutely nothing.
For more on how the media screwed the pooch, this piece by Matthew Gertz at Media Matters is excellent. Here’s just one excerpt:
The “crisis” frame plays into a narrative that right-wing organizations and politicians, former Trump administration aides, the former president himself, and the propagandists at Fox have all hammered on since Biden’s inauguration in hopes of garnering political benefit and defending Trump’s immigration policies.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigrant policy organization, warned in a January 21 press release that Biden was “inducing an immigration and border crisis” through a series of policy changes and proposals announced by his administration. FAIR, which is classified as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, further stated that Biden’s actions would “certainly spark a new border crisis.”
The Heritage Foundation has likewise sent dozens of tweets arguing that there is a border “crisis,” dating back to February 4. The right-wing think tank often cites Fox appearances by Trump administration veterans Chad Wolf, Mark Morgan, and Ken Cuccinelli, who joined Heritage as fellows in January.
Numerous Republican senators and representatives have talked about a border “crisis,” including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “The call to repeat the ‘border crisis’ language also appeared in a memo from the House Republican Study Committee that urged party members to use the term and blame it on President Biden,” as my former colleague Oliver Willis noted at The American Independent.
And of course, Fox, which has a long and lurid record of anti-immigrant bigotry and currently identifies as the “opposition” to Biden, has featured a constant and increasing drumbeat of such rhetoric beginning right as he took office. A search of the Nexis database of Fox transcripts for “crisis” within five words of “border” returns 49 results over the last week, 148 results since Inauguration Day — and none in the month before that, even though border apprehensions had been rising for the last months of Trump’s tenure.
Laura Ingraham, the Fox prime-time host whose rhetoric about immigrants “invading” and “replacing” Americans often echoes white supremacists, led the way. “Our next guest says President Biden has not just incited the next border crisis but opened the door to violence,” she said on January 21 while introducing Morgan and Stephen Miller, a former Trump White House adviser with ties to white nationalists. Ingraham or her guests also referenced an incipient or active crisis on the border on February 8, February 10, February 24, March 1, March 3, March 4, March 5, March 8, March 9, March 10, March 16, March 17, March 18, and March 19.
Ingraham’s colleagues have warned that Biden is deliberately ignoring the “border crisis” as a way to “punish” or “replace the disobedient” populace; deceptively scapegoated migrants for future COVID-19 outbreaks; and baselessly warned that they are agents of drug cartels.
None of these people are acting out of deep concern for the safety and well-being of migrant children. They are simply creating an incentive structure to drive those children back into even worse conditions over the border. Journalists should be wary of helping them by adopting their “crisis” frame.
Come on. They know better.