Mexico faces increasing difficulties controlling the flow of migrants heading to the U.S.

By Marina E. Franco

Mexico has intercepted nearly one million migrants in 2024 — a record high as it has ramped up policies to reduce migration to the U.S. The program is now under increased pressure as Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs that he says would force Mexico to “act” to stop the flow of even migrants.

A Mexican National Guard soldier keeps an eye on a migrant caravan heading north in Tapachula, Chiapas, in July.

But Mexico has been increasingly doing just that — though some experts say it’s not a viable long-term fix for the problem of unauthorized immigration to the U.S.

While interceptions in Mexico have doubled in a year, in the U.S. they have gone down by a quarter.

“Mexico has been very active and served as a buffer between the United States and at least Central America — but, really, almost between the United States and the rest of the world,” says Carin Zissis, a visiting fellow at the Wilson Center and editor-in-chief of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas Online.

Data from Mexico’s Interior Ministry shows encounters with thousands of people from as far away as Senegal, India and other parts of Africa and Asia. “A series of agreements with the U.S. and policies have made Mexico essentially the waiting room” for migrants originally headed to the U.S., says Luciana Gandini, who coordinates a seminar on displacement, migration and repatriation at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM).

The number of encounters in Mexico of people without visas or migration permits reached about 925,000 cases from January through August of this year, per the most recent update to the Interior Ministry’s migration data hub. Some of the migrants were removed from Mexico, while others were placed in shelters, though it’s unclear how many.

This year’s number of encounters is more than double the number for all of 2023, which had already set a record. Mexican authorities had an average of 115,000 migrant encounters per month through August.

A mother and daughter cross into U.S. from Mexico through an abandoned railroad on June 28 in Jacumba Hot Springs, near San Diego, California.

During Trump’s first term in office, Mexico recorded an average of about 10,000 migrant encounters per month. There were about 33,000 a month during Biden’s first two years in office.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Border Patrol registered about 1.5 million encounters in fiscal year 2024, which ended in September, per CBP data — 25% fewer than in the previous fiscal year.

The Mexican buffer
The “buffer” Mexico offers the U.S. derives from the deployment of the National Guard — which was created in 2019 and is under military control — to heavily police the border with Guatemala.

The Mexican National Guard turns back some people at Mexico’s southern border, and in collaboration with the National Migration Institute detains or transfers others to shelters and processing stations in southern Mexico.

Mexican authorities have also increasingly broken up migrant caravans headed to the U.S. Much of this is accomplished with what Gandini calls a “chutes and ladders” approach — people heading to the north in caravans or trains are intercepted by authorities and talked into getting bused to southern states for processing. “That scatters people around, making it harder for them in terms of time, money and safety to get back on the road towards the U.S.,” Gandini says.

How deportations could cripple Mexico’s crackdown
Mexico tamping down on migration is not a long-term solution to stemming migration to the U.S., experts say. The country’s crackdown could be stymied if Trump’s planned mass deportations result in large numbers of Mexicans and others being sent south of the border, overwhelming Mexico’s resources.

Mexico has increasingly become a destination country for migrants. It has been among the countries receiving the most asylum applications worldwide since 2021, according to the UN Refugee Agency. The Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR), the agency that oversees these asylum applications, is considerably under strain already.

“Mexico is already in a delicate situation as the last country of transit for people from all across the Americas and sometimes beyond,” Gandini says. “That’ll only get harder if there are thousands, let alone millions of people, that start moving north-to-south” with deportations, she adds, likening it to a pressure cooker. “So, a policy based only on containment doesn’t work in the long term,” Gandini says.

Criminal organizations move migrants
Criminal groups have been increasingly involved in migrant smuggling. The groups advertise on social media, offering passage routes. They charge migrants thousands of dollars, identify who’s paid by giving them bracelets, and regularly kidnap, extort or sexually abuse migrants to make them pay more along the way. “It is an intensely lucrative business for them,” Gandini says.

Not developing or strengthening policies that tackle this problem, especially bilaterally, fosters human rights risks, Zissin says. Trying to stop people at the border does not address the reasons that drive people to emigrate.

Safety issues have become more acute in the past few years in countries like Colombia and Ecuador, while in Venezuela people continue to flee as a political crisis and hyperinflation rage on. Nicaragua’s become even more autocratic this year, and recent blackouts in Cuba illustrate how difficult living there is for many.

“People have clearly heard about the dangers that they face and still make the journey — they remain willing to take that risk,” Zissis says.
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Credit: Axios