Migrants from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua processed in record numbers at U.S. border in 2022

Officials along the U.S.-Mexico border processed Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans 572,500 times in fiscal year 2022 – eclipsing the number of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who entered U.S. immigration custody during that period, newly released government statistics show.

Historically, citizens of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, collectively known as Central America's Northern Triangle, have made up the bulk of migrants processed along the U.S. southern border, alongside Mexican migrants. But that trend was upended over the past year with the arrival of record numbers of people from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries, including Colombia and Haiti.

The seismic demographic change has posed significant operational challenges for the Biden administration. On one hand, the authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua have severely limited or rejected U.S. deportations of their citizens, while Mexican officials have generally refused to accept the return of migrants who are not from Mexico or the Northern Triangle.