IOM warns that the arrival of migrants to the US is heading for figures never seen before

This 2022 could mark a new milestone in the number of migrants intercepted at the southern border of the United States. This is projected by the figures published in the latest report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which records 1,000,017 encounters from January to May alone.

“If we compare 2021 with 2022, we have already reached more than half in the first five months of the year. That means that we are going to see ourselves as a record year in terms of meetings unless there is a significant change in trends, but everything indicates that we are going to overcome it, ”he told the voice of america Raúl Soto, IOM Regional Migration Data Coordinator.

There was also a 70% growth in the first four months of 2022, compared to 2021, in the number of migrants who have been presented at Mexican immigration stations and transferred to shelters.

Honduras and Guatemala appear as the most frequent nationalities among those intercepted in Mexico, with 23% and 22% of cases, respectively.

“Hondurans and Guatemalans are the first two and Salvadorans are the sixth nationality. Among the three nationalities, we reached a total of 63% of all the migrant events presented and channeled,” explained Soto.

On the southwestern border of the United States, May has been the month with the largest encounters, with more than 239,000 migrants.

According to Soto, “it has been the greatest [número] in the last 17 months, that is, all of 2021 and 2022.”

The report reveals that 6% of the migrants intercepted in 2022 are minors and 98% of them were traveling alone. This corresponds to more than 62,000 children and adolescents who began the journey to the United States before they were 18 years old.

^{* Adapted for the web by Waldo Serrano, a VOA journalist, in Miami.}

Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.