The number of people crossing the southern border illegally has dropped to levels not seen in decades, a sign that President Trump’s message of deterrence and his hard-line immigration policies are working to keep people out.
Border Patrol agents made just over 6,000 arrests in June, figures released this week by the Department of Homeland Security show, punctuating a steep drop since Mr. Trump took office.
Mr. Trump ran on a platform of shutting down illegal crossings of the southern border and carrying out mass expulsions of people in the United States without authorization, positions that helped sweep him into office. His campaign to execute his immigration promises has invited showdowns with the courts, tested the boundaries of constitutional rights and upended America’s longstanding role welcoming those seeking refuge or asylum.
But in his first few months in office, it also appears to have been effective.
Adam Isacson, a border expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, said the border crossings in June were the lowest since the 1960s and were likely aided by the intensified immigration push, pointing to images of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the sending of immigrants to El Salvador and other countries they are not from, and the holding of migrants at the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
“Smugglers’ messaging may not be able to overcome the climate of fear among the immigrant community in the United States,” he said. “People are probably getting scary messages on WhatsApp, TikTok and elsewhere about how bad for migrants the climate is in the United States.”
President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration largely struggled with the southern border, with monthly arrests peaking in December 2023 at nearly 250,000. After Mr. Biden moved to limit asylum at the border, the numbers dropped under 50,000 by the closing months of his administration — but never this low.
On Jan. 20, the day he took office, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that effectively blocked asylum access for those crossing illegally into the United States. Since then, the highest monthly total of illegal crossings has been nearly 9,000. On one day in late June, according to the Department of Homeland Security, agents made only 137 arrests, a figure the agency called “the lowest single-day total in a quarter of a century.”
In a statement, Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, celebrated what she called “the most secure border in American history.”
“The world is hearing our message: The border is closed to lawbreakers,” she said. “Under President Trump, our Border Patrol agents are empowered to do their job once again, secure our border and protect the American people.”
Chad Wolf, Mr. Trump’s acting homeland security secretary during his first administration, said he had not expected the numbers to drop so low, so quickly.
“Deterrence actually does work,” he said. “And so I think for the most part, people are thinking twice about coming illegally.”
But immigrant advocates say the effects for those seeking protection have been disastrous.
Beyond blocking asylum for those crossing illegally, the Trump administration shut down a program that allowed migrants to enter the United States at a port of entry after signing up through a government app.
“They are completely stranded in the border cities — those that actually were able to get to the north are just in limbo because there is no safe option to seek protection,” said Robyn Barnard, senior director for refugee advocacy at Human Rights First. Referring to a notorious prison in El Salvador and the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, she added, “People are very scared of being sent to the CECOT or Gitmo, or elsewhere.”
During the first Trump administration, some border policies limiting asylum at the southern border were blocked in court, stymying the government’s efforts to bring the numbers down.
This time, Mr. Trump had avoided such rulings — until Wednesday, when a federal judge in Washington blocked his executive order barring asylum at the southern border. But the judge delayed the effective date of the order for two weeks so the government could appeal.
“The West will not survive if our sovereignty is not restored,” Stephen Miller, the deputy chief White House chief of staff and architect of much of its immigration policy, said on social media after the decision.
Andrea Flores, a former Biden administration official, said the ruling could be a major blow to the current administration’s goal to present an impenetrable border.
“Today’s ruling means the president could soon have to operate the same outdated system of laws that have failed to manage every border crisis for the past 10 years,” she said.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
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