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SOME MIGRANTS huddled in tents provided by local volunteers. Others slept on the desert floor, facing fire pits burning rubbish. The camp, which in 2023 sprang up outside Jacumba Hot Springs, a town in San Diego County, California, was encircled by mountains, highways and the border wall. When Border Patrol agents came to take people for processing, they had to resort to nonverbal communication. “Sit if you have a passport.” “Step forward if you are travelling with children.” If the migrants were from Mexico and Central America, as most used to be, Spanish would suffice. Yet among those who had just walked across from Mexico were people from China, India and Turkey.
Image: The Economist
Last year seems to have set records for the number of migrants apprehended at the southern border, and Republicans in Congress are demanding reforms to America’s asylum system in return for aid to Ukraine. A deal has proved elusive. Slightly more under the radar, the diversity of the Jacumba camp reflects a big change in who is crossing over. In fiscal year 2023, for the first time, migrants from places beyond Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras made up more than half of all those apprehended at the border (see chart 1). Venezuelans are the largest part of this group. But last year 43,000 Russians, 42,000 Indians and 24,000 Chinese also made the crossing—up from 4,100, 2,600 and 450, respectively, in 2021. America’s northern border has proved porous, too. In total some 40,000 Indian and Chinese migrants came south from Canada last year.
Migrants take different paths to the southern border, depending on where they come from. An analysis by Idean Salehyan and Gil Guerra of the Niskanen Centre, a think-tank in Wasington, DC, suggests that most Chinese fly to Ecuador, to which they have visa-free travel, before making the long and dangerous trek through Panama’s Darién Gap. Panamanian data confirm that the number of Chinese migrants crossing the jungle rose steadily in 2023. In October, El Salvador began to tax African and Indian travellers at the country’s main airport. Turkish migrants in Jacumba had flown to Tijuana and then walked into California.
Certain nationalities tend to cluster in specific border sectors. Chinese and Russians often cross near San Diego and Indians near Tucson, Arizona. Migration flows are constantly evolving, says Ariel Ruiz Soto, of the Migration Policy Institute, a think-tank. He likens the border to a balloon. If you squeeze one side (say, enforcement increases in San Diego), the air will flow to another (migrants will head to Tucson or El Paso.) Social media and messaging apps have helped spread information. TikTok and YouTube are filled with videos teaching migrants about routes. “Once families know that their friend or cousin has made it,” says Mr Ruiz Soto, “they’re much more likely to take a chance.”
Smuggling networks have evolved to serve the increased demand. Notices painted on walls and printed on fliers all over the Indian states of Punjab and Gujarat promise help with moving to America, Australia, Britain and Canada: visa services, college admissions, job opportunities. A charter plane bound for Nicaragua and filled with Indian migrants was recently grounded in France while officials conducted a human-trafficking investigation. The Turks in Jacumba admitted they had paid a coyote to show them the way to a hole in the border wall. Mexican cartels are also diversifying their enterprises by getting into the people-smuggling business.
Why the surge? A number of trends converged in 2023 to diversify irregular migration to America. War and instability pushed people to leave their countries. The Jewish Family Service of San Diego, which runs a migrant shelter, helped more Russians than any group besides Mexicans in the nearly two years since Russia invaded Ukraine. The end of China’s lengthy and repressive zero-covid policy allowed Chinese to travel internationally again.
Several Republican politicians have suggested that China is sending spies to infiltrate America. It is not lunacy to be wary of potential agents working for Chinese security services. Last year the Department of Justice charged two Chinese men living in New York City with operating an illegal police station “to monitor and intimidate dissidents”. Yet Mr Salehyan argues that there is no evidence that asylum-seekers, who willingly give themselves up to Border Patrol, have sabotage in mind.
Image: The Economist
Roughly 70% of asylum applications from Chinese migrants between 2003 and 2023 were granted, suggesting that their reasons for leaving China were mostly credible (see chart 2). In fact, Ecuadorian data show that a disproportionately high share of Chinese migrants are coming from Hong Kong, where dissent has been punished, and Xinjiang, where Uyghurs have been persecuted. Rather than plotting to undermine America, plenty seem to be seeking freedom.
But many, probably most, migrants have a financial incentive to come. Several at the camp in Jacumba said they were fed up waiting years for a visa, and hoped to earn more money in America than back home. As of December, more than 300,000 people who had submitted immigrant visa applications were waiting for an interview. Delays are largely the result of the pandemic, which shut down consulates and decimated their staff. More important, there are not nearly enough visas for the number of people who want to come. Yet expanding legal pathways has not, so far, been part of Congress’s spasmodic negotiations.
This increasingly global migration to America’s borderlands says something about the enduring power of the idea that America is a land of opportunity. For many migrants in Jacumba there is no other place that they would risk everything—their money, their safety—to get to. When asked why he didn’t try to move somewhere closer to Turkey, Selim Gok, a 20-year-old student, responded matter-of-factly: “Because I speak English.”■
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Inflation barely budged in April as tariffs President Donald Trump implemented in the early part of the month had yet to show up in consumer prices, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s key inflation measure, increased just 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.1%. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus forecast while the annual level was 0.1 percentage point lower.
Excluding food and energy, the core reading that tends to get even greater focus from Fed policymakers showed readings of 0.1% and 2.5%, against respective estimates of 0.1% and 2.6%.
Consumer spending, though, slowed sharply for the month, posting just a 0.2% increase, in line with the consensus but slower than the 0.7% rate in March. A more cautious consumer mood also was reflected in the personal savings rate, which jumped to 4.9%, up from 0.6 percentage point in March to the highest level in nearly a year.
Personal income surged 0.8%, a slight increase from the prior month but well ahead of the forecast for 0.3%.
Markets showed little reaction to the news, with stock futures continuing to point lower and Treasury yields mixed.
People shop at a grocery store in Brooklyn on May 13, 2025 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Trump has been pushing the Fed to lower its key interest rate as inflation has continued to gravitate back to the central bank’s 2% target. However, policymakers have been hesitant to move as they await the longer-term impacts of the president’s trade policy.
On Thursday, Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell held their first face-to-face meeting since the president started his second term. However, a Fed statement indicated the future path of monetary policy was not discussed and stressed that decisions would be made free of political considerations.
Trump slapped across-the-board 10% duties on all U.S. imports, part of an effort to even out a trading landscape in which the U.S. ran a record $140.5 billion deficit in March. In addition to the general tariffs, Trump launched selective reciprocal tariffs much higher than the 10% general charge.
Since then, though, Trump has backed off the more severe tariffs in favor of a 90-day negotiating period with the affected countries. Earlier this week, an international court struck down the tariffs, saying Trump exceeded his authority and didn’t prove that national security was threatened by the trade issues.
Then in the latest installment of the drama, an appeals court allowed a White House effort for a temporary stay of the order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.
Economists worry that tariffs could spark another round of inflation, though the historical record shows that their impact is often minimal.
At their policy meeting earlier this month, Fed officials also expressed worry about potential tariff inflation, particularly at a time when concerns are rising about the labor market. Higher prices and slower economic growth can yield stagflation, a phenomenon the U.S. hasn’t seen since the early 1980s.
19 May 2025, Berlin: Apricots are sold at a greengrocer for 7.98 euros per kilogram. Grapes and papaya are also on offer.
Photo by Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images
Germany’s annual inflation hit 2.1% in May approaching the European Central Bank’s 2% target but coming in slightly hotter than analyst estimates, preliminary data from statistics office Destatis showed Friday.
The print compares with a 2.2% reading in April and with a Reuters projection of 2%.
The print is harmonized across the euro zone for comparability.
So-called core inflation, which strips out more volatile food and energy prices, dipped slightly from April’s 2.8% to 2.9% in May. The closely watched services print meanwhile eased sharply, coming in at 3.4% compared to 3.9% in the previous month.
Energy prices fell markedly for the second month in a row, tumbling by 4.6% in May.
Germany’s consumer price index has been closing in on the European Central Bank’s 2% target over recent months, in a positive signal amid ongoing uncertainty about the economic outlook for Europe’s largest economy.
Domestic and global issues have mired expectations for Germany’s financial future.
One the one hand, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs could damage economic growth, given Germany’s status as an export-reliant country, though the potential impact of such duties on inflation remains unclear. But frequent policy shifts and developments have been muddying the picture.
On the other hand, Germany’s newly minted government is starting to get to work and has made the economy a top priority. Questions linger about when and to what extent the new Berlin administration’s policy plans might be realized.
The ECB is set to make its next interest rate decision on June 5, with traders last pricing in an over 96% chance of a quarter point interest rate reduction, according to LSEG data. Back in April, the central bank had cut its deposit facility rate by 25 basis points to 2.25%.
This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.