When Donald Trump Was President, He Had a Track Record on Immigration and Border Security, Is Anyone Paying Attention?

American Eclectic posts articles twice a month, on the 1st and 15th. This is the second year of publication; previously published articles can be found on my site.

February 15, 2024

It is instructive to recall that the year 2018, Donald Trump’s second year as President, recorded an eleven-year high for apprehensions at our Southern border. Apprehensions at the border declined between 2016 and 2017, but who gets credit (or blame): Trump since 2017 was his first year as President or Barack Obama since 2016 was his last year as President.  There was hope that since Trump presented himself as tough on immigration and since he publicized a “zero tolerance” policy where immigrants caught illegally entering the country would be prosecuted as criminals, associated with the family separation policy, that there would be a reduction in immigrants entering the country illegally and a reduction in apprehensions.  Then in 2019 (technically Fiscal Year 2019 from October 2018-September 2019) the number of apprehensions doubled from the year before. It is usual to see a President’s first year in office as not completely their policies, there is carry over from the previous administration, so 2018 and 2019 were clearly Trump years and his policies.

Since illegal immigrants entering the United States, who are not apprehended, are not known, there is a need to “guesstimate” how many came in during a particular year. Border Patrol will not catch some number, some percentage, of illegal immigrants. These immigrants are trying to avoid being caught and some get away successfully. If the number of apprehensions more than doubled between Trump’s second and third years as President, we can assume the number of illegal immigrants crossing into the country who got away went up. Notice, apprehensions went up from 2017 to 2018, and then again from 2018 to 2019.  None of this sounds like a successful Trump effort at bringing the border under control.  2020 (again Fiscal Year 2020) saw a dramatic drop in apprehensions, there were 851,508 in 2019 and 400,651 in 2020.  Should we conclude that the Trump Presidency is characterized as one with open borders for the first three years of his administration and the last year as a movement toward closing the border. 

The term “got aways” gained favor to identify the number of illegal immigrants who entered the United States and were not apprehended. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics estimated that between 55-85 percent of illegal crossings were apprehended during the Obama Presidency (so 15-45 percent got away), which was seen as better than the 35-70 percent range apprehended a decade earlier (where 30-65 percent got away). Notice the gap between highs and lows: Good under Obama was 20 percent between high and low apprehended, while ten years earlier it was 35 percent. This allows for a great deal of conjecture about how many illegal immigrants are not apprehended. In 2019, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made a statement, which was highly questionable. He stated:

[C]urrently, on most of the border, you're looking at a 90 percent-plus apprehension rate, meaning if you cross that southwest border unlawfully, over 90 percent chance you're being apprehended.

This figure was significantly higher than the Office of Immigration Statistics. As one study stated:

A hard number for successful border crossings is unknowable. So the apprehension rate is calculated with migrant survey data, mathematical models and border patrol agent assessments of people who were stopped and others who got away.

It is safe to say that as apprehensions go up, the number of got aways goes up. Not exactly very scientific, but saying “We simply don’t know,” is close to what is going on at the border. Another way to look at apprehensions go up while Trump was President is to realize immigrants were not deterred by his Presidency and continued to come to our border hoping to get in. All that tough talk by Trump about immigrants and border security, did not slow down immigrants who wanted to get into the country.

That expression “open border” is always fun to throw around.  I have hiked some 200 miles or more of the Sonoran Desert which borders Mexico adjacent to Arizona.  I can understand that deaths from dehydration will occur as one makes their way from Mexico attempting to cross into the United States.  When I hike, I use a camelback backpack which holds about two gallons of water.  In my case I tended to hike maybe 6-12 miles depending on the elevation.  Looking out at this vast stretch of land, it looks formidable to cross.  Tijuana is 13 miles from the U.S. border. Tijuana is not near where I hiked, but coyotes, the individuals guiding immigrants across from Mexico to the United States refer to Tijuana as a main point where coyotes and immigrants meet.  Assuming 13 miles is a straight path and walking will not be, considering the need to avoid detection by border patrol, the distance will be greater.  In addition, if one successful makes it into the United States then there is the need to keep going to get away from the border.

Coyotes guiding immigrants into the United States are not dealing with a border that is closed, but certainly not open. Last year, Border Patrol’s chief for the Tucson sector stated before a Congressional committee, “I don’t have the correct adjective to describe what’s going on,” and added, “Agency-wide, we recognize we need more people. I certainly know I do not have enough agents within Tucson sector to deal with the flow that we’re dealing with now.” Border Patrol has 19,300 employees (about the seating capacity of Madison Square Garden), the Border Chief stated 22,000 were needed, the Biden Administration said the Fiscal Year 2023 budget included funding for 23,000. The high point of Border Patrol employees was reached in Fiscal Year 2021 at 21,444, so there has been a decline in numbers since then. During the Trump years the numbers hovered a few hundred higher than the 19,300 figure. There was no indication that there was a significant increase in Border Patrol employees during the Trump Presidency (the 21,444 figure is something Trump can take credit for in Fiscal Year 2021). Yet, putting these numbers in perspective, in Fiscal Year 1992 there were 4,139 Border Patrol employees. Considering the number of employees at present, contrasted with 1992, raises the question of what open border are Republicans talking about. We are supposed to believe there is an open border but the overall increase in border employees since the 1990s tells a different story.

The Senate, which in early February rejected a bipartisan deal that addressed some border security issues, would have added 7,000 employees to immigration and border patrol. The influence of Trump was felt here as he pushed to make sure that no deal on immigration and border security was reached so he can use it in the election. It is safe to say this bipartisan deal was a particularly good one and could have addressed some immigration and border security issues. If Trump wins the Presidency, we should assume that Democrats in Congress will remember that he played a role in preventing this deal from going through which raises the question of whether any deal will be reached if he is back in the White House.

The reason I suspect Democrats will remember Trump interfering in the effort to address immigration and border security, about a bipartisan bill mentioned in the above paragraph, is what happened regarding Senator James Lankford (R, OK). Landford played a key role in the bipartisan plan that went nowhere. Landford remarked about a conservative commentator (not named) but addressed what he said:

I had a popular commentator — four weeks ago, that I talked to — that told me flat out, before they knew any of the contents of the bill — any of the contents, nothing was out at that point — that told me flat out, ‘If you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election.’

For Republicans and Trump in particular, the issue of immigration and border security is not about addressing ways to confront some of the issues associated with this complex problem. All Trump wants is to use fear and hatred as a vote getter and create smoke and mirrors that he has a way to address immigration and border control. But I doubt much will change even if he is back in the White House. If voters plan on voting for him (assuming he is on the ballot) with the hope he will make a significant difference on the immigration and border security issue, they will sadly be let down.

Senator Chris Murphy (D, CT) stated soon after the bipartisan immigration and border security deal fell through, “As soon as Republicans realized that it was actually going to fix the border, they voted against it en masse because they want the border to remain chaotic, because it helps President Trump and his reelection efforts.” He has a point that Republicans and Trump saw this deal as hurting Trump in this year’s election, so much for their concern about immigration and border security. I would say, however, Murphy’s reference to “fix the border” was overselling what this bill could accomplish. As you read this article, you should get the feeling that no one bill will solve the border problem. I tend to believe there is a belief that a “fix” exists for the border issue, and I am not sure that is the case. The reasons why people leave their homes in Central America, or, for that matter, any place else around the world and head to our border with Mexico are much bigger issues than simply a politician sounding tough. I was in Samarkand, Uzbekistan about four months ago and met people planning to head to the United States by way of Mexico. In December 2023, more than 120 Uzbekistani citizens were deported from the United States for illegally entering the country. Focusing solely on the border and nothing more, it fails to address much broader issues.

The overall aim of immigration control is to sharply reduce the number of people who head to the border wanting to get into the United States. Are people in Honduras, Chile, Haiti, Uzbekistan getting the message that they are not wanted and will not get into the United States and are they believing it. The answer is no! People keep coming and migration is much bigger than simply having someone running for President sound tough and propose mass deportation or creating camps to hold immigrants apprehended. All that is very impressive from a public relations point of view but, unfortunately, migration continues.

This is not to sound fatalistic and that nothing can or should be done, but serious thinking about immigration and border security, as well as bigger migration issues, require more than some election year statements that hardly rise about showmanship.

The term Open Border dates to the Obama Administration, when Republicans started using the term to attack immigration policies they criticized of his administration.  It is interesting, however, to point out that Obama was called the “deporter-in-chief" by advocates for immigration rights.  This was an odd label to pin on Obama since his deportations were well below those of either George W. Bush just before him as President, or Bill Clinton before Bush. But then deportations depend on how numbers are counted which effected this moniker attached to Obama.

Deportations is a nice term which, unfortunately, has gone through some changes and that can help to explain why Obama might have been called the deporter-in-chief while he was President. The terms “voluntary release,” “catch and release,” and “deportation,” are confusing to clearly distinguish, separate, and count. A change made in the definition of the word “deportation” affected how many people were deported. The definition change took place in the George W. Bush administration. People deported near the Mexican border might not have been counted in the deportation number, they were often simply bused back to Mexico. Since these people apprehended now get fingerprinted, they are included in the deportation numbers.

Myth versus reality plays a big part in looking at immigration issues.  Because Trump talks tough and throws around a lot of questionable proposals for how to deal with the border, the assumption believed by many is that he can solve the problem.  Yet, as pointed out above, during his first three years as President, Trump saw apprehensions go up and we can assume the number of illegal immigrants who entered the United States and got away went up. 

Biden when he became President in January 2021, issued a 100-day moratorium on deportations, but it had no effect since a federal judge blocked that decision. Furthermore, Biden moved to end Trump’s policy of “Remain in Mexico,” where those who applied for asylum needed to return to Mexico and wait to find out about their fate (officially called Migrant Protection Protocols). But, by January 2022, the Biden administration was supporting the Remain in Mexico program while attempting to improve the process for asylum seekers. Biden went through a series of policy changes regarding immigration and border security, which has played into an image of being significantly different and maybe weaker than Trump on immigration and border security, although the only real difference is that Trump has consistently spoken in language that appeals to his base of supporters, while Biden has been careful in word choice. This helps to play into an image, a belief, that Trump can “solve” the immigration and border control problem, even though he had no impact on doing so when he was President.

The contrast between Biden and Trump, with the impression that Trump can do something about immigration and border control, even though he did not when he was President, is helped by a forgetfulness about his years as President. Raw numbers also help to create an impression that Trump either was effective or can be effective as President (again). Deportations in Fiscal Year 2021 were down sharply from 2020 (although the first four months of Fiscal Year 2021 were while Trump was President since this Fiscal Year began in October 2020). There were 185,884 deportations in 2020 contrasted with 59,011 in 2021. Covid-19 played a role in reducing deportations.

If only raw numbers are examined, then going from 185,884 deportations in 2020 (Trump’s last year as President) to 59,011 in 2021 (Biden’s first year as President) looks good for Trump and bad for Biden. But another way to look at these numbers is to put them aside and focus on an increase in convicted criminals deported in Biden’s first year over Trump’s last year. In 2020, 56 percent of those deported were convicted criminals while in 2021 it was 66 percent. The Biden administration changed the priority so that aggravated felons were the focus of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We can assume that if Trump is back in the White House and he pushes for mass arrests of every immigrant he can have ICE get their hands on, they will be letting felons slip through their fingers because mass arrests will lead to a policy of ICE trying to do too much with the resources it has available.

A global pandemic cannot be ignored as to its impact on immigration and border control. In 2020, Covid-19 played a role in reducing apprehensions.  In March 2020, Mexico moved to place restrictions on non-essential travel.  By the halfway point in 2020, Mexico reported 500,000 Covid-19 cases and 55,000 deaths.   Border crossings into the United States were closed down.  In the case of the Central American countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, lockdown due to the pandemic also effected movement.  As one article stated: 

Lockdowns, curfews, and other government regulations are preventing people in the Northern Triangle from leaving their homes for everything but essential trips for food and medicine. These restrictions have ground large-scale migration to a halt, said International Rescue Committee Director of Latin America Meghan López. 

“We are seeing extremely small numbers, if any,” López said, noting that anyone who is moving is at an increased risk for contracting COVID-19. 

That dramatic drop in apprehensions, from 851,508 in 2019 to 400,651 in 2020, had next to nothing to do with Trump in the White House and everything to do with a global pandemic. As lockdowns associated with this pandemic eased, migration to the border increased again.

As Joe Biden entered office as President in January 2021, the number of apprehensions continued to go up from the last eight months of the Trump Presidency. Apprehensions reached a low in the Trump Presidency in April 2020, due to Covid-19 restrictions, thereafter the number of apprehensions increased each month through the rest of his Presidency and into the Biden Presidency. Again, how many illegal immigrants crossed into the United States while Trump was President and got away is pure guesswork. How does Trump’s time as President look like a success story in border security?

Trump’s image of being tough on immigration and border security was based partly on the issue of asylum requests. As one article stated:

For nearly all of its history, the United States has welcomed the world’s most vulnerable: men, women and children fleeing violence, persecution and death in their home countries.

But under President Donald Trump, immigration lawyers and historians say, the legal path to safety in this country is being systematically narrowed, a process that started long before family separations drew international attention to the nation’s southern border.

Those seeking asylum had grown significantly. In 2018, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions pointed out that in Fiscal Year 2010 there were less than 13,000 applications for asylum, but by Fiscal Year 2018, the number grew to more than 119,000. But while the Trump administration made it more difficult to get asylum, apprehensions at the border increased and, again we can assume, the number of illegal immigrants who entered the country and got away increased. If the intention was that making asylum harder would lead to a reduction in immigrants trying to get into the country, that was not the case. Some parts of immigration and border security (asylum seekers, border apprehension, criminal prosecution of illegal immigrants caught, unaccompanied children, treatment of children held in detention, detention and deportation of immigrants, legal status of undocumented immigrants living in the country) are mutually exclusive. Trying to solve one part of immigration and border security will not necessarily address other parts. The issue of making it harder to get asylum does not appear to be related to reducing immigrants trying to get into the country.

Trump also pushed for more detentions. ICE saw detentions increase while Trump was President. Between May 2017 and September 2019 there was a steady monthly increase in detentions, then detentions dropped as a result of Covid-19. But, during the same period, in each month that saw detentions go up, there was a slight change in removals. As one article said, “ICE detained far more people in 2019 but barely removed any more people.” It is difficult to conclude Trump was successful at addressing immigration and border control.

A study by the Migration Policy Institute concluded that Biden implemented 535 immigration actions in his first three years, while Trump implemented 472 in his four years. Furthermore, this study said:

[T]he border crisis confronting the Biden administration has left the most activist presidency yet on immigration accused of inaction by critics—to the extent that the House of Representatives this month launched impeachment proceedings against the administration’s Homeland Security secretary.

In fact, the House of Representatives recently impeached Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I guess the stage is set if Trump becomes President, his Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security can be impeached as a publicity stunt too. Election year politics ties this impeachment in with the reason that Trump put his finger on Congress to not pass the bipartisan immigration and border control bill that was working its way through the Senate.

An excellent book on politics, Democracy for Realists, makes the case that people in general, voters, pay little attention to politics. This is not, by itself, a particularly new revelation, but the book did an excellent job addressing voter preferences and tied that in with this notion of paying little attention to politics. As the book said: 

[W]hile the folk theory of democracy has flourished as an ideal, its credibility has been severely undercut by a growing body of scientific evidence presenting a different and considerably darker view of democratic politics. That evidence demonstrates that the great majority of citizens pay little attention to politics. At election time, they are swayed by how they feel about “the nature of the times,” especially the current state of the economy, and by political loyalties typically acquired in childhood. 

Elsewhere the book stated: 

The folk theory of democracy celebrates the wisdom of popular judgments by informed and engaged citizens. The reality is quite different. Human beings are busy with their lives. Most have school or a job consuming many hours of the day. They also have meals to prepare, homes to clean, and bills to pay. They may have children to raise or elderly parents to care for. They may also be coping with unemployment, business reverses, illness, addictions, divorce, or other personal and family troubles. For most, leisure time is at a premium. Sorting out which presidential candidate has the right foreign policy toward Asia is not a high priority for them. Without shirking more immediate and more important obligations, people cannot engage in much well- informed, thoughtful political deliberation. 

If the voters decide that border security is a major factor in their vote, that will likely help Trump and hurt Biden in this year’s election. But as pointed out here, Trump was pretty much a failure when it came to border security, so voters are not really basing their preference for who should be President on anything real, just imagined. What this means is that they have next to no knowledge about Trump’s record of accomplishment on border security. 

This election has two people running for President who both have track records as President, and if Trump sees border security as his big issue, his claim that he can do something to secure the border, is certainly not based on anything he did as President. I have not addressed the building of the wall which would take years to complete, assuming things go smoothly with budgetary support and if private lands where much of the border exists can be easily bought. When Trump was President, he claimed, “only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe!” But a poll conducted toward the end of 2018 emphasized most Americans did not agree with him. In that poll, 55 percent did not see building a wall as a solution to the immigration and border security problem. One video of a man climbing a wall built while Trump was President showed him go up one side and down the other, I counted 19 seconds to go up and over.

Much like the issue of age where Biden receives a great deal of attention and Trump little (addressed in an earlier article, “Two Old Men Decided to Run for President but the Narrative was Only One was an Old Man”) Trump’s lack of success on immigration and border security needs closer scrutiny.

Notes 

Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, Democracy for realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2016). The book is available online in a pdf version: https:// api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781400882731_A26663019/preview-9781400882731_A26663019.pdf   

Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “After surging in 2019, migrant apprehensions at U.S.-Mexico border fell sharply in fiscal 2020, “Pew Research Center (November 4, 2020): https:// www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/04/after-surging-in-2019-migrant-apprehensions-at-u-s-mexico-border-fell-sharply-in-fiscal-2020-2/#:~:text=Following%20a%20dramatic%20rise%20in%20fiscal%202019%2C%20apprehensions,soared%20to%20their%20highest%20level%20in%2012%20years. 

David Bier, “Trump’s Detention Surge Failed to Significantly Increase Removals,” CATO At Liberty (January 10, 2024): https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-detention-surge-failed-significantly-increase-removals

Steve Benen, “Maddow Blog/GOP’s Lankford raises eyebrows with talk of conservative media threat,” MSNBC (February 8, 2024): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/maddow-blog-gop-s-lankford-raises-eyebrows-with-talk-of-conservative-media-threat/ar-BB1hYKg6?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=d8222b6faf2943b78ad0145ea7357f98&ei=26

Joseph Cernik, “The Wall by The Donald and The Wall by Pink Floyd,” The Artifice (March 14, 2019): https://the-artifice.com/the-wall-donald-pink-floyd/

Joseph Cernik, “Migrant or Gauntlet Survivor: Novels Tackle the Plight of the Undocumented and Push the Boundaries of Policy Analysis About Migration and Immigration Reform in a Beneficial Direction,” Social Science Research Network (August 9, 2021): https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3898365

Joseph Cernik, “The Trump Administration’s Legacy and Family Separation: Policy, Politics, and Legal Issues,” in Judith McConnell-Farmer (Mikkelson), ed., World of Children: Perceptions and Connections in Sustainability with Reflections during the Pandemic (Chicago, Linton Atlantic Books, Ltd., 2021) 

Muzaffar Chishti, Sarah Pierce, and Jessica Bolter, “The Obama Record on Deportations: Deporter in Chief or Not?” Migration Policy Institute (January 26, 2017): https:// www.migrationpolicy.org/article/obama-record-deportations-deporter-chief-or-not 

Muzaffar Chishti, Kathleen Bush-Joseph, and Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, “Biden at the Three-Year Mark: The Most Active Immigration Presidency Yet Is Mired in Border Crisis Narrative,” Migration Policy Institute (January 19, 2024): https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-three-immigration-record

Russell Contreras, “Axios Explains: The myth of a U.S.-Mexico ‘open border,’” Axios (October 17, 2023): https:// www.axios.com/2023/10/17/us-mexico-border-open-borders-myth 

John Cooper, “This is how coyotes outwit the Border Patrol and this is how much they charge for a trip that sometimes turns out to be deadly,” Noticias Telemundo (March 31, 2021): https:// www.telemundo.com/noticias/noticias-telemundo/inmigracion/asi-burlan-los-coyotes-la-patrulla-fronteriza-y-esto-es-lo-que-cobran-por-un-viaje-que-tmna3874733 

John Gramlich, “How border apprehensions, ICE arrests and deportations have changed under Trump,” Pew Research Center (March 2, 2020): https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/03/02/how-border-apprehensions-ice-arrests-and-deportations-have-changed-under-trump/

Eric Katz, “‘I Do Not Have Enough Agents,’ a Border Chief Tells Congress,” Government Executive (February 7, 2023): https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/02/border-chief-congress-i-do-not-have-enough-agents/382674/

Eric Katz, “Senate rejects border-related federal hiring surge after Republicans turn on deal,” Government Executive (February 7, 2024): https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2024/02/senate-rejects-border-related-federal-hiring-surge-after-republicans-turn-deal/394010/

Stef Kight, “ICE arrests and deportations fall under Biden,” Axios (March 11, 2022): https://www.axios.com/2022/03/11/ice-arrest-deportation-number-biden-immigration

Man Climbs Over Trump’s Border Wall/Now This: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=over+the+border+wall+in+11+seconds+video+showed&qpvt=over+the+border+wall+in+11+seconds+video+showed&mid=E92C38522347A4ACD514E92C38522347A4ACD514&&FORM=VRDGAR

David Mikkelson And Bethania Palma, “Were More People Deported Under the Obama Administration Than Any Other?” Snopes (October 19, 2016): https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-deported-more-people/

Nick Miroff, “Border officials say more people are sneaking past them as crossings soar and agents are overwhelmed,” Washington Post (April 2, 2021): https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/got-aways-border/2021/04/01/14258a1e-9302-11eb-9af7-fd0822ae4398_story.html

Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti, “ICE report shows sharp drop in deportations, immigration arrests under Biden,” Washington Post (March 11, 2022): https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/11/ice-report-deporations-arrests/

Quinn Owen, “Biden administration reimposes ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy,” ABC News (January 3, 2022): https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-administration-reimposes-remain-mexico-policy/story?id=82059354

Lori Robertson, “The Facts on the Increase in Illegal Immigration,” FactCheck.org (March 23, 2021): https:// www.factcheck.org/2021/03/the-facts-on-the-increase-in-illegal-immigration/ 

Nick Robertson, “Murphy says GOP voted against border bill to keep border ‘chaotic,’ help Trump campaign,” The Hill (February 11, 2024): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/murphy-says-gop-voted-against-border-bill-to-keep-border-chaotic-help-trump-campaign/ar-BB1i7MJU?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=bf422615b5fd458b97146ada5a70f205&ei=345

Emma Platoff, Alexa Ura, Jolie McCullough and Darla Cameron, “While migrant families seek shelter from violence, Trump administration narrows path to asylum,” Pulitzer Center (July 10, 2018): https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/while-migrant-families-seek-shelter-violence-trump-administration-narrows-path-asylum

Jacob Pramuk, “Most voters believe there’s a border crisis — but they don’t think Trump’s wall will solve it,” CNBC (January 15, 2019): https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/15/voters-doubt-trump-border-wall-will-solve-immigration-issues-poll-says.html

Amy Sherman, “Does Border Patrol catch 90 percent of immigrants crossing the border illegally?” PolitiFact (January 11, 2019): https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/jan/11/does-border-patrol-catch-90-percent-immigrants-cro/

O’zbek Tilida, “Almost 120 Uzbekistani citizens deported from the U.S. following immigration violations,” gazeta.uz (December 21, 2023): https://www.gazeta.uz/en/2023/12/21/us-migration/

United States Border Patrol, Border Patrol Agents Nationwide Staffing by Fiscal Year: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2020-Jan/U.S.%20Border%20Patrol%20Fiscal%20Year%20Staffing%20Statistics%20%28FY%201992%20-%20FY%202019%29_0.pdf

Teresa Welsh, “COVID-19 halts Northern Triangle migration, but deportations continue,” devex (April 21, 2020): https:// www.devex.com/news/covid-19-halts-northern-triangle-migration-but-deportations-continue-97048 

2022 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, Office of Homeland Security Statistics (November 2023): https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/2023_0818_plcy_yearbook_immigration_statistics_fy2022.pdf