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Migration: This Time It’s Different
In 2023, for the first time ever, a majority of the “irregular migrant encounters” at the US-Mexico border originated from beyond Mexico and the Northern Triangle.
When it comes to coverage of migration—especially migration at our southern border—US media tends to focus solely on the overall numbers. It’s easy to see why: in Fiscal Year 2023, there were nearly 2.5 million “irregular encounters” at the US-Mexico border—that’s US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) terminology for expulsions and apprehensions of migrants. This broke FY2022’s record of 2.2 million [[link removed]] which, in turn, broke the previous year’s record of 1.6 million. But the more interesting story is where those migrants are coming from—and how quickly it is shifting.
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Debt Distress on the Road to “Belt and Road”
Ten years into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 80% of China’s government loans to developing countries have gone to nations in debt distress. The Chinese Communist Party has now made BRI an official part of its constitution.
To developing nations that feel shunned or ignored by Western governments and financial institutions, China’s BRI is seen as their best—if not only—hope for assistance with high priority infrastructure projects. To some Western nations, BRI is viewed as “debt trap diplomacy”—a development finance scheme [[link removed]] that aims to burden countries with unaffordable loans, and makes them vulnerable to Chinese coercion. What most everyone agrees upon is that BRI has become an effective tool deployed as part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s plan to expand his country’s global reach and influence.
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Breathing India's Air
The concentration of fine particulate pollution in Delhi, India is 10.7 times [[link removed]] higher than WHO annual air quality guidelines.
Every autumn there is a dramatic increase in air pollution in India, especially in Delhi, where decreasing winds and falling temperatures act as a trap for pollutants. It’s also the time of year when farmers perform their annual burn, removing excess paddy straw in order to clear land for the next crop. The resulting smoke spreads across the country, and combines with other hazardous pollutants, largely generated in cities. In early November of this year, that combination created a mass of smoke pollution thick enough that it could be seen in NASA satellite imagery [[link removed]] , and led to some primary schools closing until pollution levels were safer.
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AuthorAmbassador Mark A. Green Ambassador Mark A. Green [[link removed]]
President & CEO, Wilson Center


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