TRUMP EFFECT: Border Migrant Encounters Lowest-Ever

A social media post by the Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, Michael W. Banks, shows February apprehensions to be a record low for the Agency. Banks’s post reveals the startling impact of the Trump presidency on illegal migration to the United States in the 42 days since assuming office.

“February proved our combined efforts in securing the border WORK,” Chief Banks posted on X. “USBP apprehended 8,326 illegal aliens at the U.S.-Mexico border, making it the lowest month in recorded history.”

The just over 8,300 migrants arrested by Border Patrol agents who illegally crossed the Mexican border into the United States fell by 94 percent to the 140,641 encountered just one year ago. Perhaps more shocking, the numbers dropped by 82 percent from December, President Joe Biden’s last full month in office. As the transition of power took place in January, the encounter number began to plummet, falling to just over 29,000

Large-scale immigration raids across the United States and consistent messaging from the entire Trump administration resulted in the reduction of illegal border crossings. This forced the closure of multiple non-government migrant shelters that once received hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars from FEMA to move released migrants farther into the United States to await asylum hearings.

Just days after President Trump’s inauguration, two shelters closed in Pima County, Arizona. In February, a private non-government migrant shelter closed in San Antonio, Texas, just a few miles from the San Antonio International Airport. The Migrant Resource Center (MRC) had been under a partnership with the City of San Antonio and Catholic Charities since 2022.

Among other measures that occurred during February, the Trump administration conducted the first military flight transporting migrants to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. The camp in Cuba is currently undergoing modifications that will allow for up to 30,000 migrants to be held at the facility located within the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.

Information provided by the Border Patrol, revealing a new trend of reverse migration, is contributing to the lower number of crossings. Disappointed migrants are turning away from the United States mid-journey to return home.

The new trend is also being seen in Panama, where migrants are now paying boat smugglers to ferry them by water to avoid the Darien Gap jungle on their return home to Colombia and Venezuela. As reported by Breitbart Texas, an 8-year-old child perished last week after a smugglers vessel carrying mostly Venezuelan migrants south from Panama to Colombia capsized in rough waters.

Breitbart Texas reported on Saturday that President Donald Trump doubled down on his border message of strength through enforcement by deploying 3,000 more active-duty military units, including an armored Stryker brigade.

On February 21, Texas Department of Public Safety Spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez reported the daily migrant apprehension rate along the southwest border fell below 200 for the first time when agents encountered 199 migrants. By February 22, that number fell to 185.

On February 19, Breitbart Texas reported that border encounters in February averaged about 328 per day. If that number held through the end of the month, migrant encounters for February could have been as low as 9,200. The actual number reported by Chief Banks exceeded that prediction with the arrest of 8,326 migrants.

This represents a record low in CBP reports dating back to the last full year of the Clinton administration (FY2000). The previous low occurred during President Trump’s third full month of his first in office (April 2017) when agents encountered 11,127 migrants.