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Notes -
I'll just note that some of the bigger primary drivers for change in the Northern Triangle sending countries were largely driven by factors beyond Harris's influence, and even against Administration preferences.
One of the big ones, for example, has been the decrease from El Salvador... which almost certainly was caused by President Bukele's draconian tough-on-crime policies which broke the back of the local criminal gangs that increased instability-driven migration. However, this crack down came againt the objection of, not with the support from, the US State Department. Regional efforts of emulate such tough-on-crime issues and restore local perceptions of security are more often opposed rather than supported by the US. (This is because these legal authorities come at the cost of due process rights and have potential for authoritarian abuse- a concern I'd want to emphasize is valid, but also not one shared by much of the local population.)
Another is the implications of the rise of Darien Gap migration. Not only did this change the proportion of non-Northern Triangle migration sources of a whole (increasing absolute numbers of migrants, reducing relative numbers), but it provided local countries a means to pressure the US to gain migration concessions in exchange for access / cooperation, which is to say by offering more opportunities for legal northern triangle migration (reducing absolute numbers of illegal migrants by transitioning them to the legal migrant category). This does come with some genuine benefits that shouldn't be discounted- a greater willingness of the northern triangle countries to take back migrants kicked out for criminal reasons, cooperation if someone of actual concern is recognized- but it's also a bit of a categorical shell game on how to count numbers.
There have also been two non-Northern Triangle factors in particular that have grown in relevance of the last year for increasing the non-Northern Triangle numbers. Again, the US really hasn't had much influence here.
One of these is the role of Nicaragua. Not only is Nicaragua not in the northern triangle by definition (it's considered part of the southern triangle), but over the last years it has deliberately facilitated migration trough it, such as with direct charter flights which- if you're willing to pay- you can fly directly to Nicaragua and then as long as you're gone within the time limit, they don't care if you go north (wink wink). This is similar to migration-practices Belarus did during the 2021 migration crisis on the Polish border, as way both to make money and pressure a neighbor who you have more confrontational relations with.
But more important is the role of social media in making it ever-better known that migration to the US is possible, and the bottom-up facilitation networks of de jure legalization making it safer and better known (and thus better able to support larger volumes). There was an excellent NYT story- a Ticket to Disney World iirc- late last year on how this process works, and suffice to say American 'don't come here' stories pale in comparison to social media channels dedicated to the 'how to' combined with local authorities who can make more money facilitating migration through than by paying to stop an unstoppable flow.
To reinforce your point, apparently over 10% of Cuba has crossed the border into America in the last couple of years. At those sorts of numbers, virtually every Cuban is going to have a family member who they can call to tell them exactly what the process was like.
I wonder what the effects of this must be on Cuban society. This is a major depopulation event for them now, and you would expect it to be mostly younger working-age people leaving.
It's very amusing in some respects how strategic rivals in geopolitics have come to view population movement. Back in the Cold War, control of the population was an ideological imperative, and Soviet-block governments often took great difficulty to prevent free movement of populations out of or even within the country. Now, some of those successor states- or in the case of Cuba and Nicaragua, the same elites, deliberately expel population for domestic security measures, and with a level of 'if the westerners don't like it, it must be bad for them and good for me.' Which is just such a paradigm shift in the last half century or so.
And it's not without its consequences either. As more and more of the latin american populations go abroad and especially to the US, various forms of US influence increase, as the US diaspora becomes significant financial and even political influence vector. The current President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, is an US citizen (dual US and Ecuadorian, born in Miami but raised in Ecuador), which is wild not only for the fact that a Yankee capitalist was elected president of an Andean Ridge country where Chavismo was part of the leftest wave earlier in the century, but also in terms of population.
Because of how much migration has occurred from various sending countries, small countries in particular can have, well, surprisingly high ratios of their nominal census population present in the US. For example, there are an estimate .95 million of so Ecuadorian diaspora in the US out of a census population of 18 million, which is to say over 5%. There are something like 100,000 Guyanese who have arrived in the US/naturalized, when Guayana is a country of only about 800,000, or nearly 12%. The Cuban diaspora is nearly 2.7 million, to a Cuban island population of about 11.2 million, which is approaching 25% of the islanders.
Well, not quite- many of these population figures include naturalized US citizens, and they don't factor in the diasporas in other countries (far more Venezuelans stay in South American than come to the US, for example)- but it's hard to emphasize just how weird this is in a historical context, especially in a region historically sensitive to external influences. A historical justification for intervention and even annexation during the age of colonialism has long been having the presence of associated communities on the other side of the border, be it ethnic enclaves or cultural kin or even just linguistic relatives, and how this creates a basis of intervention. It's not even just an archaic practice- see the Russian justifications in Ukraine, or PRC claims on ethnic community grounds, or various brushfire wars in Africa, or the Armenia/Azerjiban ethnic enclaves, or the Arab-Israeli conflict over palestinians. Demographic ties matter, and matter a lot.
And if the American government wanted to, it has access to a whole host of justifications along similar lines.
Not that it will- not anytime in the near-term future at least- but in other times and other places, other empires would use having control of 5-10% of the population of country as grounds to control the remainder.
Yeah, the numbers are similar for Dominicans, which is the group I'm most personally familiar with. 2.5 million in the US, 11 million in the home country. Many of my Dominican relatives move back and forth between the two countries and hold dual citizenship. Most of their biggest national heroes play baseball for American teams.
I haven't directly posed the question, but I suspect most Dominicans would eagerly welcome annexation by the US. There's a ready made example of what a situation like that would look like in practice over in Puerto Rico, and Dominicans are extremely cynical about their own governance and institutions. The US dollar is seen as much more solid and reliable than their own peso, US politics is seen as much less corrupt, etc.
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I don't know the demographic breakdown, but many coming to New England are in their 50s.
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Cuba has had below replacement fertility for a while now, right? Like there's not just endless amounts of young Cubans, so it's actually even worse.
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I concede all of this and I appreciate the interesting specifics. I don’t think US policy has much of an effect on border crossings except very broadly that when the US is doing well and when other countries are doing poorly, more people want to cross. I don’t think Harris or Trump or anybody should get much hate or praise on this issue.
Not intended as anything for you to concede to! Just an addition of tangential context.
(Warning- more opinion / tangential context to follow)
In so much that anyone should get hate or praise on the issue, Biden's immigration signaling during the 2020 election, and execution thereafter, can be credited for signalling to migrants a more receptive regulatory environment due to the signaled and executed reversals of Trump's established migration arrangements (which specifically relied on Mexico, which Biden dropped and then couldn't re-enforce).
Biden's party-line position on in 2020 on various procedural items, from 'we will accept your asylum claim as legitimate unless/until we find otherwise' (rather than requiring evidence/determination in advance), followed by the known weakness of post-initial release enforcement, and public rhetorical shifts (such as avoiding the term illegal immigration whenever possible in favor of euphisms such as 'undocumented' or 'irregular') very much contributed to a (justified) perception that mass illegal migration was viable. Part of the social media how-to networks referenced before include things like coaching applicants on what to say on first encounter to appeal to the migration policy directives that Biden signalled and executed. In much the same way Trump began his foreign policy term in 2016 with an 'Anything but Obama' difference-for-difference's-sake, Biden approached migration policy with a 'anything but Trump' mantra, which was a theme leading up to 2020 and was publicly carried out.
While some of these policies were later reversed to various degrees- and there was even an especially a notable (if temporary) disruption in 2023 that roughly corresponded to the administration publicly signaling new application rules for a system that introduced a new way to remotely apply for asylum from abroad, and can be used as evidence against asylum claims if someone doesn't utilize it before showing up at the US- there was a significant perception shift in Biden versus Trump immigration enforcement intentions, and not for the stricter.
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Ok...
Which is it? It seems like you're being rather partisan...
I don’t think it has much of an affect. I’m not giving her credit for it, just saying she was czar of a problem that’s gotten a lot better.
I think you mean "effect".
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