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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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Among President Donald Trump's executive orders Monday was a declaration of a national emergency at the United States' border with Mexico, allowing him to send troops to the region.
But data shows a downward trend in illegal crossings compared to the situation Trump left former President Joe Biden.
The data, from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, indicates that in the last two months of 2024, illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border were at their lowest since mid-2020, before they began to climb to record levels.
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Newsweek reached out to the White House and Department of Homeland Security for comment via email Thursday morning.
Why It Matters
Trump made immigration, and the southwest border in particular, a key pillar of all three of his presidential campaigns. In 2024, he repeatedly hammered the Biden administration for its immigration platform and claimed it wasn't doing enough to crack down on illegal border crossings. Immigration was also a central focus of the first batch of executive orders Trump signed this week.
What To Know
CBP provides monthly updates on its work, including arrests by the Border Patrol, which give a broad picture of how many people are crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. While some people may go undetected by officers, many are arrested and recorded in this way.
Just before Trump took office on January 20, 2017, the Border Patrol was arresting around 45,000 people per month between legal ports of entry. Those numbers dropped after the Trump administration enacted stricter immigration policies but picked back up through 2018.
The number of arrests kept climbing even during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the southern border was effectively closed and migrants were sent back to Mexico or their home countries.
Arrests went from a low of 16,182 in April 2020 to over 71,000 in December of that year, just before Biden took office.
The former president struggled to stem the tide of new arrivals, with the number of arrests surpassing 200,000 in July 2021 and peaking in December 2023 at 249,740.
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But the numbers started going down soon after and immigration policy experts told Newsweek it was because the Biden administration introduced new policies at the peak of the crisis and Mexico increased its cooperation with other Central and South American countries.
Illegal border crossings steadily fell from July 2024 to December and CBP said there were 47,326 arrests made last month—nearly 25,000 fewer than the numbers Biden inherited from Trump in 2021.
One of the policies Biden introduced was humanitarian parole, known as CHNV, which refers to the countries mainly benefiting from it: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
CHNV allowed citizens from these countries, as well as others on the DHS' list, to apply for temporary visas to enter the U.S. legally following a vetting process. Arrests of those nationals between ports of entry fell 91 percent as a result of CHNV, but Trump scrapped the program on Monday.
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During his inauguration address, Trump said he would send troops to the border to "repel the disastrous invasion of our country" while promising to end all illegal entries.
Migrant communities across the country are also bracing for immigration raids as the White House pledges to carry out mass deportations.
What People Are Saying
David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, told Newsweek: "There is no doubt that border crossing numbers were much lower when President Trump took office than when President Biden did. The trend is noteworthy too. Border Patrol arrests were falling for a full year before Trump took office. They were rising for nearly as long prior to Biden taking office."
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told Newsweek: "Taken together, the stricter enforcement measures throughout the region and at the border, coupled with options for lawful and regular migration turned the tide on irregular arrivals, handing over a more orderly border to the Trump administration than the one President Biden inherited.
"Like with all big changes in administration and policy, reporting indicates that border arrivals have plummeted in the last few days, but this is a typical wait and see period," she said.
The White House said in a press release Wednesday: "Through the exercise of his authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Constitution of the United States, President Trump is authorizing and directing the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State to take all necessary action to immediately repel, repatriate, and remove illegal aliens across the southern border of the United States."
What Happens Next
The Trump administration is now rolling out its hardline policies, including expanding powers for immigration enforcement across the country. The House of Representatives also passed legislation Wednesday seeking to detain more immigrants accused of or charged with minor crimes.
CBP will likely issue its January update in mid-February.
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