Summer Migration Uptick Likely to Inflame U.S. Politics, Plus Brazil’s Risky Bet on Soy

Migration will rise this summer, inflaming U.S. politics. Immigration is the most important issue to voters in the lead up to November’s U.S. presidential election, with 28 percent of Americans citing it as the greatest challenge facing the United States in a February 2024 Gallup poll. While the pace of arrivals at the U.S. southern border fell in January and February after breaking all previous records in December 2023, officials expect an uptick as seasonal summer migration returns, fueled by the tens of thousands crossing the Darién Gap in recent months. Unrest in Cuba, near anarchy in Haiti, and authoritarian repression in Venezuela suggest more are likely to make the journey to the U.S.-Mexico border as the Biden administration struggles with an asylum case backlog topping three million. 

The bipartisan bill to address border security, which would have provided $20 billion in funds for 100 new judges and case workers, 4,300 new asylum officers, and nearly 3,000 new border enforcement personnel, failed to pass Congress, leaving Biden with no new tools. A humanitarian parole program has helped lower the numbers coming from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, as only by applying from home can candidates qualify. And even with a surge in the number of asylum claims screened, which has doubled over the last year, the Biden administration has been unable to keep pace with continued, smaller flows. As other borders have shown, border security is possible with sufficient resources, processing, and infrastructure, but all that requires investment—and, in turn, elusive bipartisan support.

Brazil’s risky bet on soy. Soy has been an economic engine for Brazil, fueling nearly $70 billion in exports—40 percent of its total export revenue and roughly 20 percent of the boost to its GDP in 2023. According to a University of Illinois study, Brazil surpassed the United States in 2017 to become the world’s top soybean exporter, with nearly three-quarters of its harvests sent to China. Yet soy’s role as a future economic driver is threatened both by the effects of climate change and the Brazilian government’s ambitions to curb them.

Too much and too little water linked to a more powerful El Niño weather cycle could reduce 2024 soy harvests by 5 percent. Early season droughts in Brazil’s midwest and too much rain in the south forced farmers to delay or re-plant this season, cutting output. In Mato Grosso, home to nearly one-third of Brazil’s soybean production, drought looks to reduce yields by 15 percent compared to last year.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (Lula’s) ambition to cut deforestation to zero by 2030, reduce carbon emissions by 51 percent by 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 also raise questions for the expanding role of soy in the economy. To accomplish his climate goals, Lula will have to limit the amount of territory dedicated to agribusiness. This means less soy.

Brazil’s politics may still keep soy production up. The agribusiness lobby remains strong—as seen in the proposed cap-and-trade system, which excludes unprocessed agricultural goods from the emissions-trading program despite agriculture being the second largest source of carbon emissions in Brazil. The lobby also controls 347 of 594 seats in Brazil’s two houses of congress. And the government’s capacity to stop deforestation connected to soy harvests is still limited—as evidenced by the more than 40 percent increase in deforestation in the Cerrado region during Lula’s first year in office.