Tighter US, Mexican Border Measures Drive 85% Drop in Migration

Irregular migration through Mexico fell by 85% in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, reaching its lowest level in five years. Between January and August 2025, Mexican authorities detained 130,385 foreign nationals in an irregular migratory situation, down sharply from 925,085 detentions recorded during the same period last year.

The historic peak occurred in May 2024, when immigration agents detained 125,499 people in a single month, almost the same as the total number for 2025 so far. In contrast, only 5,118 migrants were detained in May 2025, the lowest monthly figure since 2021, when migration flows began to rise again after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decline in migration through Mexico also reflects trends at the US border, where Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reported record-low encounters with migrants. Between October and December 2024, detentions ranged between 96,000 and 106,000, but dropped dramatically to 11,000 in February and reached 7,824 in July, the lowest figure on record.

According to academic Tonatiuh Guillén, the sharp drop is not the result of improved living conditions in migrants’ home countries, but rather the outcome of state-led enforcement policies. “This is a political effect, an exercise of state power,” he explained. “It is not that migration pressures have eased, but that governments, particularly the Trump administration, have imposed stronger restrictions.”

Guillén, former Head, National Migration Institute (INM) and now a Professor, UNAM’s University Program for Development Studies, noted that the tightening of US immigration policy has led to a rise in “self-deportations,” meaning migrants voluntarily returning to their home countries. “The dominant flow is no longer south-to-north but north-to-south,” he said. “Countries like Panama are now seeing a growing return of migrants who had initially tried to reach the United States.”