The Crossing

back
Adam Gray, SWNS, United States of America


In 2021 the highest ever recorded levels of migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, with Border Patrol reporting 1,659,206 encounters. Mexico was the single most common origin country for migrants, followed by the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Economic, social and political instability in some of these countries likely played a role in the spike in encounters at the border. The area with the largest increase of activity was in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. This work explores those encounters as migrants crossed in to the United States. Many families and unaccompanied minors crossed by boat in Roma, Texas, handing themselves in to Border Patrol agents to seek asylum. Further west on the border in Sunland Park, New Mexico, Border Patrol mainly attempted to apprehend ‘runners’ - adults who knew they would almost certainly be deported if caught.

This website uses cookies. Please confirm if you accept our tracking cookies. You can also decline tracking, so that you can continue to visit our website without any data sent to third party services. We use cookies and similar technologies to recognize your repeat visits, as well as to analyze traffic. On/Off To learn more about cookies, view our “Cookies Policy”

Necessary cookies
Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.


We'd like to set analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone.