3 Reasons Why the Massive Migration Spike of 2014 Has Faded
March 26
On March 25, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing dedicated to “Understanding and Addressing the Root Causes of Central American Migration to the United States.” While important questions about the driving factors behind last year’s spike in immigration were discussed, another element to this story is being overlooked.
The factors that contributed to Central American migrants’ decision to make the journey north in large numbers last summer (insecurity, poverty, and weak rule of law) are known, at least loosely, to some in the migration policy and academic communities. But the reasons behind the drop in migration in the following months are much less understood.
The last several months of 2014 saw arrivals of Central American unaccompanied children and families decrease just as sharply as they increased during the spring. After an unprecedented wave that overwhelmed U.S. authorities’ capacities and illustrated the need for a more rapidly deployable Border Patrol, the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border dropped so steeply that there were fewer in August 2014 (3,138) than in August 2013 (3,718).
Why is this? Below are three main hypotheses for the decline, as laid out in WOLA’s latest report: On the Front Lines: Border Security, Migration, and Humanitarian Concerns in South Texas.
1.) The government of Mexico cracked down on migration from Central America, curtailing migrants’ longstanding use of cargo trains to travel north and stepping up apprehensions of Central Americans. As the chart below illustrates, Mexico returned 104,269 citizens of Central America’s “Northern Triangle” countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) in 2014, up from 77,896 in 2013.
This enforcement came at a cost, however. Migrant rights defenders in Mexico and groups who work with deportees in Central America claim that this increased enforcement, combined with lax screening for protection concerns in Mexico, led Mexico’s government to deport thousands of Central American children and families with valid claims for asylum or other forms of humanitarian relief under Mexican law.
2.) Another explanation may lie in reports that migrant smugglers widely spread a false rumor that the U.S. government was offering some kind residency permit (“permiso”) to children and parents from Central America—and that this offer would expire at the end of June. This could help explain the sharp uptick in arrivals as part of a rush to arrive in the United States by that date, and would account in part for the notable decrease afterward.
3.) Finally, WOLA heard from Border Patrol representatives in the RGV sector who credited modest U.S. policy changes as deterrents to further migration. They cited the Homeland Security Department’s public relations campaign in Central American countries, which debunked the “permisos” rumor and urged would-be migrants to stay home.
Agents especially emphasized a July increase in the number of Central American “family units” who, instead of being released with a requirement to appear before an immigration judge, were finding themselves held in family detention centers: first, a temporary facility in Artesia, New Mexico, and later a new 2,400-bed facility in Dilley, Texas, which opened in December 2014. Advocates and lawyers for migrants have expressed serious concerns about these family detention centers given the possibilities for abuse and because many of the families held there have valid claims for asylum in the United States, and present no public security or national security risk.
It is unclear which of these explanations of the post-July drop holds more weight than the others. Each involves very different actors, policy mechanisms, and social phenomena, so it is likely that the shift is due to some combination of all three.

