Politics
Migrant arrests are up along the border in California and dropping in Texas. Why?
A new pattern emerged along the nation’s southern border last month: Migrant arrests plummeted at the Texas border in January compared to the same month a year ago. At the same time, similar arrests soared year-over-year at entry points in California and Arizona.
Experts say a combination of factors is likely causing the shift, which has led to several thousand migrants entering California each week while they await court dates for immigration proceedings.
Stepped-up enforcement efforts by the governments of Mexico, Panama and Colombia, and heightened violence by cartels on the Mexican side of the Texas border have likely slowed expected migration into that state.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s restrictive new immigration policies, including installing razor wire along some parts of the border and a new state law that could take effect next month, could also be playing a role.
“For something to change that much that quickly, it’s either word of mouth among migrants or some change among smuggling patterns, or both,” said Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy organization.
He said some migrants and smugglers may already be changing their routes in anticipation of the Texas law, which would authorize local police to charge migrants with illegal entry and reentry, punishable by six months in jail or up to 20 years in prison, respectively. The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups have issued warnings for immigrants to avoid travel in Texas.
“How does that [information] filter out?” Isacson said. “Everyone has phones now and can alter where they’re going very quickly.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office blamed Republicans for sabotaging attempts at progress on border security.
“In the absence of any political courage from the Republican Party, California has once again stepped up — making historic investments and serving as a model of partnership for a safe and humane border,” spokeswoman Erin Mellon wrote in a statement.
Texas’ anti-immigration policies have pitted it against the Biden administration.
Last month, Texas lost a fight against the administration over its use of barbed wire along the border. By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court said Border Patrol officers may remove barbed wire installed by Texas authorities that prevented the federal agents from monitoring areas along the Rio Grande.
A federal judge in Austin will decide whether the new Texas law making illegal border crossings a state crime can go into effect March 5.
Migration patterns along the border vary month to month due to seasonal changes, including weather. But even after accounting for those normal fluctuations, last month’s arrest figures stood out.
According to the latest Border Patrol figures, the regions of El Paso and Del Rio, Texas, each had fewer than 18,000 arrests in January. That’s nearly half the number from the same month a year earlier.
Meanwhile, migrants attempting to enter the country illegally in the San Diego region were arrested nearly 25,000 times in January, a 60% increase over the same month last year, Border Patrol figures show.
Arizona witnessed an even larger increase. Tuscon had more than 50,000 arrests, up from 20,000 last year, according to the Border Patrol.
The Mexican government’s stepped-up enforcement is a factor in the drop along the Texas border, said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Enforcement within Mexico as far south as the city of Tapachula, which borders Guatemala, has disrupted migration routes along the path toward Texas, while having less effect on those bound for Arizona and California.
Migrants of similar nationalities tend to head toward particular regions of the border. A senior official with U.S. Customs and Border Protection said arrests of migrant families from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — who tend to show up at the border with Texas — typically decrease in the first few months of the year.
Arrests in Arizona and California steadily increased since last summer, the official said. San Diego sees a more diverse population of arriving migrants, including those from as far as China, Turkey and Guinea, and is less affected by seasonality as people from certain countries can buy plane tickets straight to Tijuana, one of the largest cities along the Mexican border.
After increasing through January, weekly Border Patrol numbers showed 8,659 arrests near San Diego for the week ending Feb. 6 and a decrease to 7,531 by Feb. 20.
Customs and Border Protection data show a 75% drop in arrests of Venezuelans from December to January. Ruiz Soto said that’s because the governments of Panama and Colombia stepped up their enforcement of the Darien Gap, the dangerous jungle route between those two countries where many migrants pass through on their way to the U.S.
Smuggling patterns, which were somewhat consistent for many years, have shifted every few months since 2021, Isacson said. He pointed to cartel infighting in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which borders the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and the increase in migrant kidnappings.
San Diego hasn’t been one of the top regions for migrant arrests for decades, Isacson said.
Citing increased migrant arrivals, CBP officials temporarily shut down the San Ysidro Pedestrian West crossing in December and redirected agents to assist Border Patrol officers taking migrants into custody.
The border protection agency official said they screen nearly 1,000 people daily through a fast-tracked removal process. But the agency lacks enough asylum officers to scale up those screenings, so many more migrants are placed into traditional deportation proceedings and released pending a final order from a judge, which could be years away because of the backlog of millions of cases.
One outcome of the heightened arrivals to California was the early closure Thursday of the San Diego Migrant Welcome Center, operated by the nonprofit SBCS, formerly South Bay Community Services.
The Customs and Border Protection official said that highlights the need for more funding. Organizations in the area, including Catholic Charities and Jewish Family Services, haven’t received additional federal money this fiscal year through FEMA’s shelter and services program.
A bipartisan bill blocked by Senate Republicans earlier this month would have funded sweeping immigration reforms aimed at addressing the unprecedented arrivals at the southern border. In the wake of the bill’s failure, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has warned it could resort to releasing thousands of detained immigrants as it seeks to address a $700-million budget shortfall.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) filed an amendment to the failed national security bill to include $5 billion in FEMA funding for migrant shelter and services. He told The Times he will continue working to increase such funds.
“The federal government must increase its support for the community-based organizations who are providing important humanitarian assistance to migrants in California and across our southwestern border,” he said in statement.
Asked about the migration shift, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) blamed the Biden administration. His district includes Jacumba Hot Springs, where hundreds of migrants have been held in open-air camps.
“Biden has surrendered our sovereignty and is letting foreign governments — many that are hostile to our national interest — decide who gets to cross our borders, break our laws, and remain in our country,” he said in a statement.
The San Diego welcome center, which opened in October, offered migrants Wi-Fi, food and help coordinating transportation and shelter. It served about 81,000 migrants.
The center operated with $6 million in federal COVID-19-era American Rescue Plan funds allocated through San Diego County. The money was projected to last through March. The county Board of Supervisors is working to develop a long-term plan for migrant transfer sites and respite shelters.
“As the number of migrants arriving at the center has increased significantly over the last few weeks, our finite resources have been stretched to the limit,” SBCS President and Chief Executive Kathie Lembo said in a statement.
The Customs and Border Protection official said the agency has shifted some personnel to California since last year, though not in recent weeks. The agency is concerned about the decrease in humanitarian support with the welcome center’s closure and the impact that could have on border communities in California, the official said.
Nonprofits that offered services to migrants at the center, including the legal services provider Al Otro Lado, were left scrambling to fill the gap as arrivals of migrants continued. Border Patrol buses dropped around 350 migrants off at a transit station Friday, the organization said.
new video loaded: Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
transcript
transcript
Jan. 6 Rioter Hired by Pentagon
Elias Irizarry, who pleaded guilty to climbing through a broken window at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, now works for an office responsible for uncovering and defending against terrorism plots at the Pentagon.
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“Full pardon or commutation?” “Full pardon.”
By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 4, 2026
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Democrats splintered over a resolution seeking to block the U.S. from assisting Israel’s war against Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, on Thursday.
The measure, offered by progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., would require President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Lebanon. For months, Israel and Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group and Iranian proxy, have been at war in southern Lebanon, but the United States has not joined the conflict.
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., rejected the measure. Critics argued the resolution could aid Hezbollah and potentially hamstring U.S. military operations in the country.
Tlaib’s resolution failed 92-324, with more than half of House Democrats joining nearly all Republicans to vote it down.
The Lebanon war powers resolution divided Democrats, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., joining Republicans in rejecting the measure. (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg)
REP RASHIDA TLAIB MOVES TO BLOCK US OPERATIONS IN LEBANON BUT IGNORES HEZBOLLAH
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., an Israel critic, was the lone Republican to support Tlaib’s measure. Meanwhile, Reps. Derek Tran, D-Calif., and Betty McCollum, D-Minn., voted present.
House Democratic leaders said shortly before the vote they would oppose Tlaib’s resolution and work with the progressive lawmaker on a narrower measure exempting some U.S. military operations in the country. Their statement also denounced Hezbollah as a “violent terrorist organization” and a “sworn enemy of the United States.”
Tlaib, who has accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing” in Lebanon, did not mention Hezbollah in her resolution. She and other proponents of the measure also avoided discussing the Iranian proxy force during heated floor debate over the measure.
Republicans highlighted the omission and accused the legislation’s supporters of serving as “proxies for Hezbollah.”
“Apparently they don’t want to see Israel killing Hezbollah, even though it’s Hezbollah that is killing Israeli children, Israeli adults, Israeli elders,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., said Wednesday, referring to his Democratic colleagues.
Tlaib asserted that her resolution would only affect U.S. forces actively engaged in hostilities. Republicans, however, disputed that claim and suggested it would hurt U.S. efforts to counter Hezbollah.
“It doesn’t say anything about [whether] you can keep the Marines that are in the embassy,” Mast said, referring to the U.S. embassy in Beirut. “That’s a pretty big oversight. It doesn’t say anything about whether we can keep United States armed forces that are training missions with the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces]. Again, pretty big oversight.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, attempted to bar U.S. forces from joining Israel’s war in Lebanon. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg)
RASHIDA TLAIB HIT WITH HOUSE CENSURE THREAT, ACCUSED OF ‘CELEBRATING TERRORISM’ IN PRO-PALESTINIAN SPEECH
The debate turned personal when Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, linked Tlaib to Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah is a terrorist organization … and its members are butchers that you like to hang out with to a certain extent,” the Ohio lawmaker said, referring to Tlaib.
A shouting match between the two then broke out, with Tlaib demanding that Miller’s remarks be stricken from the record.
The presiding chair ultimately complied with her request, but Miller doubled down on his remarks.
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“Yes, I said it. I own it, and I stand by it,” Mast said on behalf of Miller on the floor.
Tlaib’s failed war powers resolution comes as Iran has sought to tie Israel’s invasion of Lebanon to its ceasefire negotiations with the United States.
Hezbollah, which has long helped Iran project power in the region, rejected a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon’s government Thursday.
WASHINGTON — Initial efforts in the Senate failed Thursday to block the $1.8-billion fund that the Trump administration has sought to establish to pay people who claim the government wronged them, though further attempts were likely to come Thursday afternoon.
Republicans narrowly voted down a Democratic amendment to ban the payout fund and then Democrats killed a Republican amendment, which would have prohibited the use of federal money for the fund but would have sent $1.7 billion to the Justice Department’s fraud division.
It was the second effort in Congress to rebuke President Trump in two days, following the House vote Wednesday to rein in Trump’s war powers in Iran.
The dueling amendments were proposed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). They were attached to the reconciliation bill that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol, a high priority for Republicans.
The votes came as the Senate began a “vote-a-rama,” during which lawmakers were expected to propose a stream of amendments to the immigration bill on various topics.
The Trump administration’s plan for the payment fund — widely seen as a way for Trump to compensate his political allies, including those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — set off particular ire from some GOP lawmakers.
The plan has fueled growing unrest within parts of Trump’s party over his governance, compounded by the president’s endorsement of primary challengers to Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), as well as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), which angered some Republican senators.
Cassidy, who lost his primary and has since voiced strong opposition to Trump’s $1.8-billion fund, became a key player in the Thursday votes, voting down Schumer’s amendment but supporting Tillis’.
On Wednesday, Cassidy joined with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to argue in a court filing that the $1.8-billion fund circumvents Congress’ authority and violates the Constitution’s spending and appropriations clauses.
“It is an unconstitutional attempt to spend the People’s money without Congressional approval,” Cassidy and Booker wrote in an amicus brief filed in the federal court case challenging the fund.
The fund was created by the Justice Department to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. Trump and his sons agreed to drop their personal lawsuit against the government in exchange for the creation of the $1.776-billion fund. Critics immediately questioned the plan, and it drew a rare backlash from Republicans.
In late May, GOP senators derailed plans to vote on the immigration bill over their displeasure with the payout fund and with Trump’s desire to use taxpayer funds for his planned White House ballroom. Senate Republicans removed the ballroom funding from the immigration package Wednesday, another setback for Trump.
The Trump administration sought to back away from its plans for the fund this week, following bipartisan outcry and a federal court ruling that temporarily blocked any payouts from the fund. Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said Tuesday the administration would end its plans to move ahead with the concept.
But Trump on Wednesday told reporters he didn’t know whether the fund was dead, calling it “a beautiful thing.”
After Schumer proposed the first amendment to ban the fund Thursday morning, the Senate came to a standstill as three key Republican senators deliberated. Schumer framed his effort to ban the fund Thursday as a way to force a referendum on Trump’s plan.
The amendment “offers Republicans a choice: Do you support Donald Trump’s $2 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund, or do you want to protect the American people and their paychecks?” Schumer said on the Senate floor before the vote.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) urged Republicans to reject the amendment, saying Democrats were planning to “play so many games” on Thursday during the marathon session.
“We are going to fund immigration enforcement and border patrol, and I urge my Republican colleagues to stay united on that singular mission,” Moreno said.
The amendment failed after Cassidy voted against it. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska voted in favor.
Schumer’s amendment was uniformly supported by Democrats, including California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla.
Tillis, who also voted against Schumer’s amendment, immediately proposed his amendment. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) urged Democrats to oppose it, saying that the proposal would create “a new slush fund” by giving the money to the Justice Department.
“We heard over the last 48 hours that the acting attorney general said that this fund’s not moving forward. All this amendment does is codify what I believe the policy of the DOJ is,” Tillis said on the floor before voting began on his amendment. “This [fund] is unpopular, this administration has said they’re not moving forward with it; this is an opportunity for us to put it to bed.”
Responded Merkley: “Taking one slush fund and eliminating it and then creating a new slush fund still under control of the attorney general is not the way to go. The way to go is to get rid of these slush funds altogether.”
Trump has faced a recent string of failures, including the House vote Wednesday, a court ruling to remove his name from the Kennedy Center and a record-low approval rating among Americans as concern rises about economic issues, gas prices and Trump’s war with Iran.
On Wednesday, Trump lashed out against the four Republicans who backed the House war powers resolution, calling it “an unpatriotic thing” to do and calling the vote “meaningless.”
“They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves. MAGA!!! President DJT,” Trump wrote.
Times staff writer Ana Ceballos, in Washington, contributed to this report.
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