US reopening four southern border entries after migrant crossings drop

Crossings at Eagle Pass, Texas, Lukeville and Nogales, Arizona, and San Ysidro, California will reopen

US Customs and Border Protection will reopen commercial and legal travel at four official crossings on the US border with Mexico on Thursday after reports that migrant crossings have slowed.

The four crossings — Eagle Pass, Texas; Lukeville and Nogales, Arizona; and San Ysidro, California — were partially or fully closed recently in an effort to slow crossings.

An official noted that on Monday the US Border Patrol processed approximately 2,500 migrants, which represented a significant decrease in reported arrivals when compared to the rest of December.

US officials partially attributed the drop in crossings to efforts taken by the Mexican government to curb immigration toward the US border, according to CBS News.

Those efforts include increased deportations to southern regions of Mexico — rather than dropping deported migrants in Tijuana, just across the border with San Diego — and deporting Venezuelan migrants back to Venezuela. US officials said the US is also working to increase deportations to Venezuela.

In addition to curbing illegal crossings, US officials also reported they and participating agencies have repatriated more than 460,000 migrants, including reunifying 75,000 parents and children who migrated as families.

The news comes on the heels of a visit to Mexico by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Joe Biden's homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall. The officials met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to discuss issues pertaining to the US-Mexico border.

A bipartisan group of senators and the White House have been brokering a deal that would introduce significant changes to the US's asylum and border security regulations. Republicans have pushed for greater border security in exchange for further government funding to assist Ukraine and Israel.

The White House has signaled that it is open to drastically limiting asylum conditions and accepting an expansion to detention and deportation of migrants who have crossed into the US illegally, according to CBS News.