Migrant encounters at the southern border have dropped to the lowest level since 2017 amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Border authorities recorded around 15,700 encounters in the 30 days since Trump’s inauguration, the lowest 30-day total since April 2017 and a 91 percent decline from the 166,900 monthly average under the Biden administration, according to Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen.
Encounters have plummeted 94 percent from their December 2023 peak of 263,900 under former president Joe Biden. During Biden’s term, an estimated 8 million migrants entered the United States illegally, with more than 13,000 migrants convicted of murder remaining at large as of late September.
Since his return to the White House, Trump has declared a national border emergency, which allowed him to deploy thousands of active-duty troops to help secure the southern border. Trump also signed an executive order ending what he called Biden’s “catch and release” policy, and he reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” program from his first term.
A total of 42,048 illegal migrants were removed from the United States between January 21 to February 18, Thiessen reported.
On February 16, border agents encountered only 229 migrants at the southern border. “I started as a Border Patrol Agent in 1984 and I don’t remember the numbers ever being that low,” Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, said in an X post.
The Trump administration has also terminated all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal migrants and designated Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa cartel, and six other drug cartels as global terrorist organizations.
Earlier this month, Trump used tariffs to pressure Mexico and Canada into deploying troops and personnel to secure their borders with the United States and curb the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants.
Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration has widespread public support. Eighty-seven percent of Americans support deporting illegal migrants with criminal records, while 63 percent support removing all who entered illegally in the past four years, according to a New York Times poll.
