Shocking new border numbers hint at major turnaround in migrant crisis

The Biden Administration released the latest border crossing numbers late Friday, showing a 32% drop in migrants caught by Border Patrol in July-- what the feds call the 'lowest number since September 2020.'

The staggering decrease in migrant crossings comes four years into the worst border crisis the US has ever seen-- with historic numbers of migrants arriving at the nation's border's seeking entry-- including huge amount of asylum seekers.

Since October 2021, over 10 million migrants have crossed into the US, according to federal statistics-- straining the federal agencies that handle migrants and bringing border communities, like El Paso, Texas, to its knees.

Texas' sixth largest city operated under a state of emergency for more than a year due as 2,400 migrants a day were crossing there at the peak-- at one point starting its own charter program to bus migrants out off of its streets and to the cities the migrants really wanted to go to, like New York and Chicago.

Two crackdowns are responsible for the change, border expert Adam Isacson of The Washington Office on Latin America told DailyMail.com.

The quiet border near El Paso, Texas as migrant crossings plummet in recent weeks

'It's a combination-- Mexico making it harder to get across Mexico, and the US making it harder to get asylum is you cross "the wrong way," he explained.

Since January, the Mexican government has stepped up efforts to stop mostly South and Central American migrants traveling through its country on their way to the US.

Pressured by the Biden Administration, Mexican officials have set up checkpoints to find migrants on northbound buses and trains and return them to the Mexico-Guatemala international boundary.

In June, the White House announced changes how migrants could seek asylum at the border.

Any migrant who did not legally enter the US would be removed and not allowed to seek asylum.

Migrants crossed the Rio Bravo river near El Paso in 2022 on the way to turn themselves into US border control and seek asylum

Up until then, even those who crossed the border illegally could simply seek out a Border Patrol agent and surrendering, asking to begin an asylum case. 

Biden's change in asylum has had a real impact on the ground-- dropping border crossings in El Paso from about 1,000 a day before the announcement to just 398 a day now, Border Patrol officials shared. 

The West Texas city has gone from seeing a huge amount of so-called 'give ups' (migrants who crossed the border only to surrender and ask for asylum) to more traditional traffic-- migrants sneaking in and trying to evade Border Patrol all together.

Now migrants wanting to make asylum claims are forced to wait in Mexico until they can secure a CBP One Appointment at a US port of entry, the 'legal way' to come into the country.

However, with only 1,450 appointments available per day, the coveted appointments often take weeks or months to secure-- assuming migrants are not kidnapped or killed in the process. 

Migrants speak with a border agent near El Paso on December 16, 2022

A migrant from Michoacan, Mexico, uses the CBPOne app Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, in Tijuana, Mexico

Mexican border towns where migrants are waiting for asylum appointment have become hot beds of brutality for migrants who are easy targets for gangs to hold for ransom, sell into sex slavery or kill.  

However, Biden's asylum rule is already facing lawsuits from the likes of the ACLU and other groups-- which is why Isacson believes the President took so long to enact it.

'This is really a dubiously legal rule-- the ability to ban asylum between ports of entry contradicts section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which says that you can apply for asylum whether you entered at a port of entry or not,' he explained.