Migration to the United States

Where are southern border migrants coming from?

The figure below shows the top 10 countries of origin for southern border entries from 2014 to 2024 (the 2024 data is annualized based on January - May entries). It is based on official Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reports of entries at official border crossings and arrests of people crossing the border elsewhere.

The Advance Travel Authorization (ATA) countries are Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, whose citizens are eligible for ATA, which allows them to enter the U.S. automatically and work while their asylum claims are decided. “Other CSA” refers to other countries in Central and South America.

The figure shows the dramatic increase in migration to the U.S. over the last decade. Pre-pandemic, the majority of entrants were from Mexico. Now, migrants are coming from a much wider range of countries, both the ATA countries and other places such as Columbia (330 entrants in 2014 vs. 219,120 in 2024).

Why are migrants coming to the US?

Research shows that migration is often the result of quality-of-life issues, most notably poor economic conditions. The figure below illustrates this point using DHS migration data from Central and South American countries. The data point for each country shows its GDP per capita (2023 data) on the x-axis – this variable measures the strength of a country’s economy and the quality of life that its citizens can expect. The y-axis shows the percentage of the country’s population that entered the U.S. through America’s southern border in 2023.

The chart highlights the countries with a high percentage of migrants, including Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Guatemala, Venezuela, and El Salvador. The chart shows why migrants are more likely to come from these countries than others. These eight countries are all relatively poor, with a GDP per capita of less than $10 thousand. (In contrast, the U.S. GDP per capita is over $80 thousand.) On the other hand, countries with stronger economies, such as Argentina, with a GDP of more than $20 thousand per capita, have virtually no migration to the U.S.

Other reasons for migration include fears of crime and living under an authoritarian political regime. For example, Honduras, which of the nations examined here had the highest rate of migration to the U.S. in 2023, also had one of the highest murder rates in the world – 38.3 per 1000 compared to 6.8 per 1000 in the U.S. The same is true for Mexico. High migration rates from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, in part, are driven by repressive governments that imprison citizens (all are rated as “Not Free” by Freedom House, a respected NGO that evaluates political freedoms in countries throughout the world).

The Take-Away

The U.S. faces an ongoing problem: many Central and South American people want to immigrate to America. Our recent analysis shows that new policies are reducing the number of migrants, at least for now.

This brief expands on the earlier analysis to show how quality-of-life issues drive migration decisions. Migrants are not just coming from Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela. Rather, migration is happening throughout Central and South America from countries with weak economies, high crime rates, and repressive political regimes.

It is an open question whether the U.S. should assist countries in Central and South America with improving the quality of life of their citizens. Our findings raise the issue that if improvements do not happen, would-be migrants may find new ways to evade restrictions on the southern border, leading to increased entries and a continued border crisis.