This column contains a correction.
Introduction
Failed negotiations in Congress over a bipartisan border security deal have led the Biden-Harris administration to take new executive actions to further restrict access to asylum at the United States’ southern border. This step is part of a broader package of deterrence efforts seeking to address irregular migration. The Biden-Harris administration has also sought to increase access to lawful migration pathways, including via the use of statutory immigration parole authority.
Whereas much of the conversation about the southern border centers on the question of how to deter unauthorized immigration, surprisingly little is known about the determinants of southern border flows. However, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) provides monthly data on the number of encounters that Border Patrol (BP) agents and Office of Field Operations (OFO) officers have with noncitizens attempting to enter the United States. These data are broken down into two categories: 1) encounters with inadmissible noncitizens at official ports of entry; and 2) encounters with inadmissible noncitizens in between official ports of entry. (see Methodology text box below) Encounters in between official ports of entry represent attempts by noncitizens to enter the country without authorization. In many of these cases, a noncitizen immediately attempts to flag down a BP agent in order to be apprehended so they can apply for asylum. In other cases, a noncitizen attempts to evade Border Patrol completely.*
Acknowledging that there is no perfect measure of unauthorized immigration, this analysis examines the determinants of encounters at the southern border and tests whether policies and practices that facilitate access to legal pathways affect encounters in between official ports of entry. In other words, the analysis attempts to answer the following question: Can policies and practices that facilitate access to lawful pathways affect the behavior of noncitizens seeking to enter the United States, wherein noncitizens forgo attempting to enter the country without authorization and instead seek to enter the United States at official ports of entry?
The analysis finds that the use of immigration parole authority by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leads to a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of encounters with noncitizens in between official ports of entry. This implies that restricting lawful pathways to the United States would be counterproductive to managing southern border flows.
In contrast to the scant evidence that deterrence-only policies work to durably deter irregular migration, the data show that immigration parole policies—such as the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan (CHNV) parole processes—are negatively and statistically significantly related to the percentage of monthly encounters in between official ports of entry. These data confirm a statement made in a DHS press release about the CHNV parole processes: “[E]xpanding lawful pathways as an alternative to irregular migration has yielded positive results.”
CHNV parole processes
Immigration parole is a discretionary authority granted by statute to the secretary of homeland security that allows certain noncitizens to enter the United States for a period of time for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. The Biden-Harris administration announced the CHNV parole processes on January 5, 2023. The processes allow a monthly total of up to 30,000 nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who are outside the United States, and who may lack U.S. entry documents, to receive travel authorization to fly to a U.S. interior port of entry to request entry on parole.** Each request is considered on a case-by-case basis, and parole into the United States is for a period of up to two years. To be eligible, a person must be a national of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, or Venezuela; “have a supporter in the United States who agrees to provide them with financial support for the duration of their parole”; undergo vetting; and “[w]arrant a favorable exercise of discretion,” among other eligibility criteria.
The author theorizes that the opportunity to be considered for parole into the United States through a policy such as the CHNV parole processes acts as a strong incentive for people to forgo attempting to enter the country without authorization between ports of entry and instead seek to participate in a lawful process. Importantly, there is no guarantee that an individual will be paroled into the United States under the CHNV parole processes. Because demand exceeds the monthly 30,000-person cap, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) randomly selects approximately half of the monthly total number of applications it receives for consideration. This random selection incentivizes prospective asylum seekers and other would-be migrants not to seek entry into the United States between official ports of entry even though there is uncertainty as to whether they will be granted travel authorization to request parole—or, indeed, whether they will be granted parole once they present at an interior port of entry.
In the 14 months since January 2023 for which data were available as of May 2024, when this analysis was conducted, the average percentage of monthly encounters with Cuban nationals in between official ports of entry was 7.1 percent—92.2 percent lower than the commensurate average in the 14 months prior to January 2023. For Haitians, it was 1.3 percent, which is 45.2 percent lower, and for Nicaraguans, it was 23.8 percent, which is 75.6 percent lower. For Venezuelans, it was 49.6 percent, which is 41.2 percent lower.
Altogether, the average percentage of monthly encounters with CHNV nationals in between official ports of entry vs. at ports of entry along the southern border for the 14 months since January 2023 was 28 percent; this is 65.7 percent lower than the commensurate average in the 14 months prior to January 2023. By comparison, the average percentage of monthly encounters with non-CHNV nationals in between official ports of entry vs. at ports of entry along the southern border was 70.7 percent during this same period. This is just 2.9 percent lower than the commensurate average in the 14 months prior to January 2023—a difference that is statistically significant (p = 0.013).
These findings are consistent with a district court ruling that found that the state of Texas had no standing to sue the Biden-Harris administration over the CHNV parole processes, as the number of CHNV nationals entering the United States in the months before the processes were implemented was markedly higher than the number entering subsequent to implementation and as the number of individuals entering the country in the absence of the policies would have been higher than it ended up being.
Analysis reveals significantly reduced irregular migration in between ports of entry after implementation of CHNV parole processes
The author analyzed DHS data using the difference-in-differences (DID) method, a research design that is commonly used to estimate causal effect of a treatment—such as a policy intervention such as the CHNV parole processes—by comparing data from treatment and control groups. As Table 1 shows, the percentage of monthly encounters with CHNV nationals in between official ports of entry along the southern border is 61.8 percentage points lower than it would have been had the CHNV parole processes not been implemented (p = < 0.001). As parole processes began for Venezuelans in October 2022, a model is re-estimated, and the results are substantively the same.***
Figure 1 shows the parallel trends assumption in the DID model pre-CHNV parole processes and the divergence in the percentage of monthly encounters in between official ports of entry vs. at ports of entry along the southern border post-CHNV parole processes. As the right side of the graph shows, the 14 months after January 2023 saw a significantly lower percentage of monthly encounters with CHNV nationals in between official ports of entry vs. at ports of entry compared with non-CHNV nationals.
Altogether, the data show that the percentage of monthly encounters with CHNV nationals in between official ports of entry along the southern border significantly decreased after the implementation of the CHNV parole processes. The findings here are consistent with recent analysis of CBP encounter data from October 2011 through July 2023, which found that making more lawful pathways available to prospective migrants causes a decrease in subsequent irregular border crossings.
Conclusion
Can creating more legal pathways to enter the United States, including practices and policies that facilitate access to lawful pathways, affect the behavior of prospective migrants, including asylum seekers, wherein those seeking entry to the United States attempt to do so at official ports of entry, rather than without authorization in between ports of entry at the southern border? Analyzing the CHNV parole processes, which allow some Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals to be granted travel authorization to seek parole into the United States at an interior port of entry, suggests that the answer to this question is yes. CAP analysis shows that practices and policies that facilitate legal pathways can reduce irregular migration and encourage prospective migrants to seek entry into the United States through such processes and at official ports of entry.
Methodology
This research analyzes data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to build on previous findings that restrictive policies and practices designed to deter arrivals at the southern border have not worked as intended. For example, analysis of expanded family detention under the Obama administration and family separation under the Trump administration showed that these policies did not deter arrivals at the southern border. More recently, despite the Biden-Harris administration’s imposition of new restrictions on seeking asylum at the southern border, total encounters with inadmissible noncitizens at the southern border are likely to decrease in the immediate term but rebound in the short to longer terms.
DHS defines total encounters with inadmissible noncitizens as “[t]he sum of U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) Title 8 apprehensions, Office of Field Operations (OFO) Title 8 inadmissibles, and noncitizens processed for expulsions under Title 42 authority by USBP or OFO.”
* Unpublished author interview with a Border Patrol agent in Jacumba, California, May 2023.
** Correction, August 8, 2024: This column has been corrected to clarify eligibility for CHNV parole.
*** Taking into account the parole processes for Venezuelans that started in October 2022 shows that the percentage of monthly encounters with CHNV nationals in between official ports of entry along the southern border is 51.5 percentage points lower than it would have been had the CHNV parole program not been implemented (p = < 0.001).