The number of migrants apprehended on the US-Mexico border in the 2025 fiscal year plunged to the lowest total in more than 40 years, upending a human smuggling industry that had become a major revenue source for organized crime groups.
US Border Patrol agents encountered just under 238,000 migrants during the fiscal year, which started in October 2024 and ended September 30, according to data published by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
SEE ALSO: How US Policy Foments Organized Crime on US-Mexico Border
This marked an almost 85% drop from the 1.5 million migrants that were apprehended on the southern US border in the 2024 fiscal year. Just two years earlier, in 2022, US authorities detained a record 2.2 million migrants along the US-Mexico border.
Though the overall numbers have dropped, the majority of those encountered continue to be citizens of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, according to the data.
Before President Donald Trump returned to office in January, migrant smuggling and ancillary criminal economies like kidnapping and extortion were arguably the most profitable business venture for organized crime groups in Mexico. Some experts estimated that the profits they earned rivaled – or even surpassed – those of the international drug trade.
But Trump’s aggressive campaign to reduce immigration and remove immigrants from the United States has profoundly impacted migration flows and smuggling activities. As of August 2025, the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin estimated there were about 6,600 migrants living in Mexican border cities. Nationwide, Mexican migration officials calculated there were about 125,000 people with an “irregular” migration situation.
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While the business of smuggling migrants over the US-Mexico border may be transforming, there are still large numbers of migrants stuck in Mexico who are exposed to criminal groups.
The Trump administration has effectively shut down the process for seeking asylum, and Mexico has increased obstacles to obtaining some type of regularized status to remain in the country. This has blocked migrants from accessing formal job opportunities in Mexico and made them as vulnerable as ever to attacks from organized crime.
Indeed, 73% of migrants surveyed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) through September 2025 said they did not have any immigration or asylum documents to remain in Mexico, according to data obtained through nearly 1,500 surveys of 3,000 people from more than a dozen countries.
Of those interviewed in the north of Mexico, more than half said they had been a victim of crime, primarily kidnapping, but also robberies and extortion. In border cities dominated by organized crime groups, such as Ciudad Juárez, criminal networks that once relied on smuggling migrants have now turned to kidnapping the migrants that remain, as well as local residents, to generate income.
SEE ALSO: As Migrant Flows Drop, Crime Groups Adapt in Ciudad Juárez
“Organized crime groups evolve, adapt, and respond to market dynamics,” said Stephanie Brewer, the director for Mexico at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). “So even if there are numerically fewer migrants trying to cross the border, migrants in Mexico have gone from being extremely vulnerable to absolutely vulnerable.”
That is because the difficulties that migrants face in obtaining status in Mexico make it increasingly unlikely that they will report the crimes they are victims of at the hands of criminal groups or corrupt authorities. This is especially true of predatory crimes like extortion, which has grown in recent years and has one of the highest rates of underreporting in Mexico.
“It’s very rare that crimes committed against them are investigated and prosecuted,” Brewer told InSight Crime.
Featured image: A US Border Patrol agent drives along the southern border in Arizona. Credit: Parker Asmann.