One deadly week reveals where the immigration crisis begins — and where it ends

Previous U.S. presidents have grappled with waves of migrants who show up at the border. But the federal government’s actions since President Donald Trump took office in 2017 – including limiting asylum requests and separating children from families – have left border officials ill-equipped to respond and have put migrants at unneeded risk, creating a scenario that serves no one well, according to local government officials, immigration lawyers, longtime border residents and immigration policy experts.

“It hasn’t been treated as a whole-government emergency response,” said Theresa Brown of the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center. “It’s been treated as a border security problem. That’s exacerbated the problem.”

This year, the sheer number of migrants who arrived – especially families – overwhelmed U.S. Border Patrol facilities. In the first six months of 2019, federal agents apprehended 534,758 migrants at the southwestern border – the highest six-month tally of any year since 2008, according to Border Patrol statistics.

The administration notes that apprehensions were down in August, year over year, and points to that as a sign that the Trump presidency has slowed the flow of immigration. But the consequences of the 2019 surge will ripple through the immigration system for years, and the administration’s recent move to block asylum almost entirely seems certain, experts say, to put more migrants at risk.