The Trump administration had to end the crisis on its own. Choosing a heretofore-unused, but statutorily authorized “Remain in Mexico” program, it negotiated with Mexico to house migrants seeking U.S. asylum on the Mexico side of the border during their pending court proceedings.
When would-be migrants learned claiming fear alone was no longer their ticket into the U.S., the caravans stopped coming.
The Trump administration also used leverage with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to negotiate asylum cooperative agreements that resulted in those countries (and Mexico) enforcing their own borders to prevent migrant flows, building up their own asylum systems, and receiving nationals back who traversed their country, but had not requested asylum before seeking it at the U.S. border.
In short, the Trump administration imposed consequences for illegal immigration and ended “catch and release.”
It worked.
The number of Customs and Border Protection encounters rapidly declined to
52,000 by September 2019, and fell further to
36,000 in February 2020, before COVID travel restrictions were imposed.
In March 2020, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed Title 42 public health restrictions, ordering the suspension of admitting individuals traveling from Canada and Mexico, regardless of their country of origin.
Accordingly, the Trump administration immediately returned illegal aliens across the border to prevent further spread of the coronavirus.
https://www.heritage.org/immigratio...ming-trump-border-crisis-has-zero-credibility