The trend started in February of last year due to Mexico increasing immigration enforcement and policies under the Biden administration that limited asylum claims between ports of entry, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan immigration think tank.
“As with any change in administration, and this was true of the first Trump administration, because of the general rhetoric around immigration, we did see kind of an initial decrease, so it’s not altogether surprising to see that decrease,” Putzel-Kavanaugh, who studies migration trends along the border, said.
“There’s kind of a general wait-and-see period of people trying to figure out what makes the most sense in terms of their own needs and in their journey,” she added.