African migration to the US is rising while Europe is collapsing

The young men from Guinea had decided it was time to leave their impoverished homeland in West Africa. But instead of seeking a new life in Europe, where so many African migrants have settled, they left for what has lately become a much safer bet: the United States.

“Entering the United States is certainly compared to European countries, and so I came,” said Sekuba Keita, 30, who was recently at a migrant center in San Diego after an odyssey that took him by plane to Turkey, Colombia. , El Salvador and Nicaragua, and then overland to the Mexico-US border.

Mr Keita, who spoke French, was at a mobile phone charging station downtown among dozens more Africans, from Angola, Mauritania, Senegal and elsewhere, who had made the same calculation.

Although migrants from African countries still make up a small share of those crossing the southern border, their numbers have soared as smuggling networks in the Americas open new markets and take advantage of intensifying anti-immigrant sentiment in some corners of Europe.

Historically, the number of migrants from Africa’s 54 countries has been so low that U.S. authorities classified them as “other,” a category that has grown exponentially, driven recently by rapidly rising numbers from the continent, officials say.

According to government data obtained by The Times, the number of Africans apprehended at the southern border rose from 13,406 in 2022 to 58,462 in fiscal year 2023. The top African countries in 2023 were Mauritania, with 15,263; Senegal, at 13,526; and Angola and Guinea, which each numbered more than 4,000.

Nonprofits working on the border say the trend has continued, with the absolute number and share of migrants from Africa rising in recent months as potential destinations in Europe narrow.

“You have countries that are becoming less and less hospitable,” says Camille Le Coz, senior policy analyst at Migration Policy Institute Europe. “If new routes open, people will migrate because economic opportunities in their own country are insufficient.”

According to the United Nations, a record number of people worldwide are on the run, fleeing climate change, authoritarian states and economic instability.

The growing number of migrants from Africa has exacerbated the crisis at the Mexico-U.S. border as they join legions of migrants from Central and South America, as well as China, India and other countries, on their way north.

Nearly 2.5 million migrants crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2023, and about 300,000 migrants were processed by U.S. Border Patrol in December, the most of any month, stretching resources to the limit. Most people will seek asylum, which will allow them to remain in the United States until the outcome of their case, which will be decided years later.

President Biden is facing pressure from Republicans in Washington and from some mayors and governors to stem the flow of migrants into the country and into cities and towns that are struggling to accommodate the newcomers.

For decades, Congress has failed to reach consensus on comprehensive changes to the immigration system, adding to the challenges of responding to the surge.

Now Republicans in Congress have demanded the Biden administration speed up deportations and limit asylum in exchange for support for war aid to Ukraine and Israel, with talks on that expected to resume next week when lawmakers return to Washington.

The wave of migrants from African countries may be noticeable even before they arrive in America. After a flight from Senegal recently landed in Morocco, an airport employee called everyone heading to the Nicaraguan capital Managua. Several dozen Senegalese travelers followed her.

The Nicaraguan government, led by former President Daniel Ortega, does not restrict the entry of Africans, and by beginning their journey there overland, migrants are spared the dangerous journey through the Darien Gap, a dense jungle between Colombia and Panama.

The African migrants continue to travel through Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico until they arrive at the southern U.S. border. Nearly 28,000 Africans passed through Honduras between January and September, a sixfold increase from the corresponding period in 2022, the Honduran government said. Guinea, Senegal and Mauritania are among the top 10 countries of these migrants; only a few dozen people from each of these countries traveled through Honduras in 2020.

While the United States has increased deportations to fleethe country has had to release more and more people because immigration detention centers are full and families cannot be locked up for long periods of time. It is also extremely difficult to deport people to countries in Asia and Africa, due to the long distance and lack of permission from many countries.

Across the Atlantic, immigration has raised concerns in many countries. Right-wing candidates with anti-immigration platforms prevailed in a number of national elections last year, most recently in the Netherlands. France, Germany and Spain have signed agreements with Tunisia and Morocco to intercept migrants traveling through them. And on December 20, the European Union signed a pact to facilitate the deportation of asylum seekers and limit migration to the bloc.

Migrants heading to the United States share tips and success stories on social media, and smugglers disguised as tour guides advertise their services. Friends and relatives say they receive a U.S. work permit after filing an asylum application. And while the migrants are unlikely to win their case, it typically takes years for a decision to be made due to a huge backlog in immigration court.

“In the past, migrating across the U.S. border has been very mysterious to people,” said John Modlin, the head of the Border Patrol in Tucson, who has seen large numbers of Africans crossing in remote areas.

“The biggest danger right now is the global reach of the smuggling organizations,” aided by social media, he said in a recent interview.

The route from West Africa and through Central America emerged a few years ago, according to Aly Tandian, a professor specializing in migration studies at Gaston Berger University in Senegal. But in 2023, the number of departures increased dramatically as more migrants began flying through Morocco and Turkey on their way to Nicaragua.

“I saw that people had reached the United States,” Ousman Camara, 27, a student from Mauritania who now lives in the United States, said in an interview. “Morocco controls the seas, making it more difficult to reach Europe.”

Mr. Camara said he no longer felt safe in Mauritania, where human rights groups have documented widespread abuses against black minorities, and that he planned to seek asylum in the United States.

He borrowed about $8,000 from a friend to make the trip, which he said he would pay back once he has steady work in the United States.

Unlike many migrants from countries in the Americas, many migrants from Africa and Asia had families or friends who could help pay for airfare to Nicaragua.

Mr Keita, from Guinea, said he sold his small detergent factory in Kankant to pay for the trip. “Working here, I can improve myself and take care of us,” he said.

Mohammed Aram, 33, from Sudan, where a civil war broke out in April, said the United States was the best place to start a new life. “Access to Europe is difficult,” said Mr. Aram, who planned to go to Chicago.

More than a dozen migrants interviewed for this article said they surrendered at the border to U.S. agents, who bused them to a processing facility. There, the migrants waited two or three nights for their turn to provide personal information to the authorities. They were released with documents showing that they were in deportation proceedings and had to go to court on a specific date in the city where they had indicated they would live.

Finally, the migrants were released to the center in San Diego, where they were given meals and help contacting friends or relatives across the country, who typically paid for plane tickets to their U.S. destination.

After reaching the United States, many were optimistic about making a fresh start in cities across the country. But some who traveled to the United States said social media posts failed to mention the danger they might encounter during their travels, especially through Central America and Mexico.

Paulo Kando, 20, and M’bome Joao, 22, from Angola, an oil-rich country on the West African coast, said bandits robbed their cellphones and all their money at the Guatemala-Mexico border. They got jobs stacking charcoal in carts to earn some pesos in Mexico. By the time they reached California, they had nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Now they were stranded in San Diego. An Angolan friend in Portland, Oregon, had promised to see them, but didn’t answer his phone, and they couldn’t afford the bus fare to get there. They didn’t know anyone else in the United States, they said. Yet they did not regret coming.

Mr Kando, who spoke in his native Portuguese, said his aim had not changed. “We’re trusting God that a miracle will happen,” he said, “and that we’ll get to Portland.”

Elian Peltier contributed reporting from Casablanca, Morocco.