The number of asylum-seekers in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Alternatives to Detention program dropped drastically since last year in South Texas, a trend that coincides with a dramatic drop in migrant apprehensions in the border throughout 2024, according to new data.
As of Dec. 13, a total of 3,668 migrants were placed in the ATD program through the agency's Enforcement and Removals Operations in Harlingen, which covers South Texas. That's down 10,000, or 72%, from the number who were being monitored on Dec. 16, 2024.
Nationwide, there were over 185,000 asylum-seekers monitored through ATD programs as of Dec. 13, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
ICE's Alternative to Detention program allows non-citizens to remain in their communities while their immigration case is pending. ATD programs include case management services and ensure that migrants comply with release conditions. The program can also include release on conditions, release on bail or bond, electronic tagging and more. ICE selects participants for the program, and they cannot apply to be in it.
Those in the program are mostly monitored through SmartLINK— a cellphone app that allows the agency to call and record the location of the migrant, as well as send calendar reminders for upcoming U.S. immigration court hearings. As of Dec. 13, there were 2,185 monitored via SmartLINK; 1,248 on ankle monitors; and 224 on write-word GPS devices in South Texas. By comparison, nearly 13,000 asylum-seekers were being monitored through SmartLINK at the end of 2023 in South Texas, according to Border Report.
Nevertheless, Texas continues to have the most ICE detainees of any state with 12,000, so far in Fiscal Year 2025, which began Oct. 1. That's twice the amount of Louisiana, which has the next highest number, TRAC reports.
Those figures come as the number of U.S. Border Patrol encounters with migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has plummeted in 2024, according to Pew Research Center.
The Border Patrol recorded 58,038 encounters with migrants crossing the border in August, according to a Pew Research Center of the latest available government statistics. That was a 77% decline from 249,741 encounters in December 2023, the most ever recorded in a single month.
Most recently, arrests of undocumented migrants at the border fell in November, clocking in at the lowest figure in over four years. About 47,000 migrants were caught crossing the border in November.
That figure is a decline from the October number, which stood nearly at 57,000 and is the lowest monthly total since July 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic and at the last stretch of the Trump administration.
Experts credit this trend to policy changes in both sides of the southern border. For one, authorities in Mexico have stepped up enforcement to prevent migrants from reaching the U.S. border. And U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order in June that makes it much more difficult for migrants who enter the U.S. without legal permission to seek asylum and remain in the country.
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