The Southwest Border Enforcement Report focuses on describing numbers of border encounters and the Department’s enforcement response. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues to face unprecedented challenges at the border. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement supports CBP by detailing personnel to the border to support migrant processing. The continuing high number of encounters likely reflects many of the same push factors that have propelled migration from Mexico and Central America for years, including poverty, high levels of violence, and corruption, along with Hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, and additional disruptions in several South American and Caribbean countries.
As some terminology in reports do change, we maintain previously posted reports and datasets as originally approved and published.