What’s Driving Record Levels of Migration to the U.S. Border?

Millions of people are leaving their homes across Latin America in numbers not seen in decades, many of them pressing toward the United States.

While migration to the U.S. southern border has always fluctuated, the pandemic and the recession that followed hit Latin America harder than almost anywhere else in the world, plunging millions into hunger, destitution and despair.

A generation of progress against extreme poverty was wiped out. Unemployment hit a two-decade high. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine choked off a key pipeline for grain and fertilizer, triggering a spike in food prices.