When many Central Americans began appearing at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2013 and 2014, Americans reacted with surprise. Why were Central Americans suddenly deciding to come to the United States now? Of course, there is more than one answer, but perhaps the most important missing context is that just as many Central Americans were trying to reach the United States in earlier years. They just didn’t make it.
Figure 1 shows the number of arrests of Central Americans from the Northern Triangle by Mexican authorities and by the U.S. Border Patrol from 2001 to 2019. As it shows, arrests in 2005 and 2006 rivaled those from 2014 to 2018, but the large majority of the arrests were made in Mexico, not the United States. U.S. and Mexico apprehensions declined together from 2001 to 2011, but starting in 2012, they increased much faster in the United States than in Mexico, meaning far more Central Americans made it to the U.S. border.
In 2006, just 30 percent of Central Americans arrested made it to the United States, while 70 percent were arrested in Mexico. By 2014, these percentages had flipped, even though total arrests in both countries were nearly the same. Mexico temporarily ramped up enforcement and had a majority of the arrests in 2015 but by 2019, the percentages reached another record high. The increase in migrants reaching the United States first coincided with an absolute increase in migration from 2001 to 2006, but it continued to increase from 2007 to 2011 even with a large decrease in total arrests.
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