What nationalities are the migrants crossing the US-Mexico border illegally?

The US is facing an unprecedented migration crisis, with its southern border officials forced to deal with thousands of illegal entries daily.

December 2023 was the record month for illegal border crossings in the history of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency.

The 2024 fiscal year, which started in October, has not been good. More than 785,000 people have crossed in the first three months, up 20,000 from last year and half a million from 2021.

Still, 80% of the encounters that CBP officials have near the southern border are with immigrants from just eight nations, all Latin American.

Mexico has the most illegal crossings, accounting for nearly a third of the entries from those eight countries. Border patrol officials have encountered Mexicans 196.000 times.

Millions of Venezuelans have fled their country's economic and political crisis for years. Close to 150,000 Venezuelans faced authorities near the border in the last three months of 2023.

Over 85,000 Gutemalans crossed the border in the first three months of the 2024 fiscal year. It is more than double the number from the past year.

In the case of Hondurans, the number is over 60,000. It represents 10% of the total migrants from the eight top countries.

A little over 47,000 Colombian immigrants crossed illegally between October and December of 2023. The amount of South American nationals crossing has grown since 2022.

Border authorities have also located nearly 45,000 Cubans fleeing hunger and economic turmoil. The conditions are different for them upon arrival because of the laws protecting them in the US.

Border authorities have encountered around 42,000 Ecuadorians. That is nearly half the total of 2023. There is a security crisis in the country.

Haiti is undergoing a deep security crisis as well. Haitians are the last nationality to top the list with over 19,000 crossings.

According to The New York Times, there has been a shift in the nationalities crossing the border in the last few years. Before the pandemic, most migrants came from Mexico and Central America.

That is still true, but the tendency for the number of immigrants from these countries has not drastically changed since 2021. The numbers have been consistent.

On the other hand, the number of immigrants coming from Venezuela, Colombia, or Ecuador is rising. The exception is Guatemala, which still has growing numbers.

All this while every solution the Biden administration has put on the table to fight the problem fails. The latest one, a bill conceding Republicans more border security, was shut down by GOP members in the Senate.