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We do not yet know exactly how President-elect Trump will enact a promise to close the border on Day 1, but we can take a snapshot of the U.S.-Mexico border as Trump prepares to take office, and that view reveals something a little surprising. Unlike a year ago when a surge of migrants was peaking, today, border crossings are down dramatically. NPR's Jasmine Garsd begins her look at the border with a woman hoping to cross.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: It's noon in Tijuana, Mexico. The sun is barreling down, and in the shade, a woman with a tired gaze is rocking her child to sleep. Cindy Alami is from Colombia. She and her husband owned a small store there.
CINDY ALAMI: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: She says the local gang extorted them. Said, pay or we kill your family. So they headed north.
ALAMI: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: The plan was to hire a coyote - that's a smuggler to get them over the U.S. border. They found one who said he'd charge $8,000 for the three of them, but people at the Tijuana shelter warned them not to attempt to cross the border that way.
ALAMI: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: "You could get killed. If you get caught, you could get sent back to Colombia."
They were encouraged to instead try getting an appointment using CBP One. That's the U.S. Customs and Border Protection app to legally request entry into the U.S. They've been here in Tijuana at a migrant shelter trying to get that appointment for five months.
ALAMI: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: "January 20 is almost here," she says, "when President Trump takes office." He's vowed to shut down the CBP One program and reinforce the border, which these days looks pretty quiet. According to the CBP, in the last six months, apprehensions decreased by more than 70%. That's due to a combination of executive orders by President Biden last summer, and the Mexican National Guard cracking down on migrants heading to the U.S.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: At the Juventud Mille migrant shelter in Tijuana, Director Jose Maria Garcia Lara says for months now the number of people showing up has gone down. What's happening is they're staying away from shelters, NGOs and official help centers.
JOSE MARIA GARCIA LARA: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: Instead, they're moving underground, hiring coyotes to cross them over the border and go undetected. In her spot under the shade, Alami says she's tempted to do the same.
ALAMI: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: But now the coyote has nearly doubled his price from 8,000 to 15. Undocumented immigration is a business, and right now business is booming. I meet Samuel at dusk. He won't tell me his last name because his work is illegal. He's a coyote.
SAMUEL: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: He says crossings cost between 9 and $12,000 for a family.
SAMUEL: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: These days, coyotes are crossing through deeper parts of the desert, dangerous terrain, to avoid increased patrols by the Mexican National Guard and U.S. Border Patrol. When asked if a Trump administration will hurt business, Samuel scoffs.
SAMUEL: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: "Put up a wall, but you better make sure it covers the sky because there's no such thing as a problem for us. Like a mouse, we will find a hole."
KATE MONROE: There's different parts of...
GARSD: Several miles up on the San Diego side of the border, Kate Monroe envisions a very different future - one with an impenetrable border. She's the founder of BorderVETS, a group of former military that advocate for stronger borders. We're driving through the Jacumba Wilderness alongside the border wall.
MONROE: Up until just a few months ago, you would see 500 to 1,000 people a day crossing in every single hole along this border in broad daylight and nobody stopping them or deterring them from coming over.
GARSD: For the last six months or so, it's been pretty deserted. Where there used to be these massive open-air detention camps, there's nothing but dirt now. Her hope is President Trump will take it further, meaning give more resources to border patrol, deport immigrants who have criminal records in mass, and finish the wall.
MONROE: That way we have said, and we have been very clear on, we drew a line in the sand. Do not cross this wall.
GARSD: She says just because she's passionate about this, doesn't mean she doesn't have empathy for migrants - quite the contrary. Monroe ended her military career after a brutal sexual assault. She says she hears migrant women talk about being raped while en route to the U.S. and it crushes her. She'd like to see immigration reform that provides alternatives to people from all over the world trekking across Latin America, hoping to cross that border.
MONROE: ...Want to do all these jobs we say Americans don't want. Well, then we need to make a better plan in a way that doesn't get them assaulted, robbed and killed on the way here.
GARSD: As we talk, we see a family walking by the border wall. They've just crossed. They're the first migrants I've seen out here in three days.
RONALD: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #3: (Speaking Spanish).
RONALD: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: Monroe gives them water. Their daughters, 4 and 11, start crying.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #3: (Crying).
RONALD: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #3: (Crying).
GARSD: Their puffy winter jackets are covered in desert dust. Dad, Ronald hugs them. "We made it," Ronald tells them. "We're in a safe place now."
They've been traveling for a month. They're from Venezuela. They got too scared to wait in Mexico, so they paid a coyote to bring them over.
RONALD: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: "To them," Ronald says, "we are nothing but merchandise."
Border patrol agents whisk them away before they give us their last name or the rest of their story. This, Monroe says, is what she also means by securing the border and revamping the immigration system.
MONROE: It's a very sad situation that they find themselves in because we need labor. Is this what - that does not look like compassion to me.
GARSD: In a matter of seconds, the patrol car takes them away, leaving us behind in a cloud of dirt.
Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, California.
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