Since President Donald Trump took office in January, illegal migrant border encounters have plummeted an astounding 94 percent compared to a similar period last year under the Biden administration.
For example, according to Border Patrol sources, on March 27 there were only 32 encounters in El Paso, Texas, compared to 1,134 encounters on the same day in 2024. That’s a 97 percent decrease in the number of encounters.
In Tucson, Arizona on March 28, there were a total of 59 apprehensions at the border compared to 1,222 on the same day last year, a 95 percent reduction.
Meanwhile, in San Diego, only 36 people were apprehended on March 27, down 96 percent from the same day last year when 908 people were apprehended.
In total, on March 27, there were only 254 apprehensions along the southern border compared to 4,229 on the same day last year, an astounding 94 percent decrease.
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Following Trump’s first full month in office, February, there were a total of 8,326 apprehensions which he said was a record-setting low. This is a 96 percent drop compared to February 2024 when Biden was in office.
Following the release of these figures, Trump declared that the border is now closed and that anyone illegally crossing into the country would be quickly deported or prosecuted for crimes against the United States.
‘The invasion of our country is over’
“This means that very few people came — The invasion of our Country is OVER. Anyone who tries to illegally enter the U.S.A. will face significant criminal penalties and immediate deportation,” Trump wrote.
The decrease in the number of border crossings is significant. Under the Biden administration it would be typical for anywhere between 8,000 and 10,000 migrants to cross into the country illegally in a single day.
For instance, according to Border Patrol data, in December 2023 a total of 249,785 apprehensions were recorded.
Many of these migrants were then placed on planes to be relocated to other parts of the country, or in the case of Texas, were sent by bus to sanctuary cities like New York, where municipal governments spent large sums of money to feed, house and provide health care for the migrants.
The massive drop in apprehensions was achieved without a single piece of legislation being passed, something Biden said needed to happen to stop the unprecedented level of migrants from crossing into the country illegally.
In Trump’s second term, he has focused on issuing executive orders that simply enforce the laws already on the books, coupled with clear messaging, in order to achieve the decrease in migrant flow.
Campaign promise kept
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised that one of the first things he would do if elected would be to clamp down on illegal migration.
Trump made good on his promise, appointing border czar Tom Homan to lead the charge.
Homan is now famous for saying that “families can be deported together” if they want to stay together.
Despite this, according to a report recently released by the Transactional Records Access Clearing House (TRAC) the number of deportations under the new Trump administration is below what the Biden administration was able to achieve, however arrests of illegal migrants are up.
For instance, between Jan. 26 and Feb. 8, 693 migrants were removed from the country, 6.5 percent below what the Biden administration achieved during the same period last year.
“Despite deploying staff from other agencies to assist in enforcement activities and ordering active-duty military to facilitate removals at the border, daily removals have still failed to reach even the levels achieved by the previous administration. Indeed, President Trump’s removal record is growing worse with time rather than improving,” TRAC reports.
However, the number of arrests under the Trump administration have soared.
During the 2024 fiscal year, an average of 759 illegal migrants were booked into ICE facilities, a number that rose to 1,126 from Jan. 26 to 31, according to TRAC data.
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