The White House over the weekend touted its progress on the southern border as President Donald Trump completed his fourth week back in office.
“Encounters of illegal immigrants at our southern border are plummeting and migrants are starting to realize it’s fruitless to attempt to illegally cross our border,” the White House said Saturday in a statement.
Upon taking office, Trump issued a series of executive orders ending Biden administration policies that allowed asylum seekers to flood into America. On his second day in office, the president sent 1,500 active-duty service members and additional air and intelligence assets.
Border crossing attempts are down more than 90% from the same time last year, according to data first obtained by the New York Post.
“Border numbers are down over 90% in three weeks,” Tom Homan, the pick by Trump called border czar, said during an interview on Fox News. “When you got 90% less people coming across the border, how many women aren’t being raped by the cartels? How many children aren’t drowning? How many women and children aren’t being sex trafficked in this country? President Trump is a gamechanger.”
Multiple media reports indicate many people headed from other countries to the United States have since changed their mind and headed back home.
The White House pointed out a Wednesday story from The Washington Times showing officials in Costa Rica and Panama are meeting to discuss how to handle the large number of people who had been waiting in Mexico to enter the United States but have since given up and are returning to South America.
The administration also linked a Thursday story from Telemundo saying “migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Columbia and Venezuela are heading back home” instead of continuing to America. And the White House linked a Thursday story from El Cronista saying the Mexican government provided a $9.3 million contract for 140 shelters to help with people “returning to Mexico.”
Policies during the Biden administration allowed 12 million people to enter the country, most given dates to appear with immigration officials much later. The volume pushed many of those appointments beyond a year and even 18 months. A surge in fentanyl accompanied the timing.
Trump, the second term Republican, has reversed the trend. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and specifically ICE Enforcement and Removal regional offices, across the country have helped move many people illegally in the country back to their native homelands.
Trump also threatened tariffs against Mexico if it did not help fix the problem. To temporarily avert the tariffs, Mexico’s president agreed to deploy thousands more troops to the southern border.
In another reversal, the Biden administration worked – including litigation – to block Texas from installing border security measures like barbed wire and buoys in the river to keep people from swimming across.
In a social media post Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote, “Texas installed more buoys into the Rio Grande the SAME day President Trump returned to office. The Biden administration tried – and FAILED – to keep Texas from using this effective border security tactic.
“Now, we have a President who is partnering with Texas to deny illegal entry.”
