Donald Trump has been President of the U.S.A. since January 20th. That’s less than six months.
Some people love Trump, some people hate Trump. But whatever one may say about Trump, the man has certainly fulfilled his pledge to get control of the U.S.-Mexican border.
From Hamed Aleaziz at The New York Times:
“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.”
This is a big contrast to the previous U.S. administration:
“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.”
But actually the Biden administration didn’t “struggle” with the border, it intentionally had a near open borders policy. Obviously, that’s not Trump’s policy.
“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.’ ”
The article quotes Chad Wolf, who served in Trump’s first administration (before Biden).
“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.’ ”
Wolf is now with the America First Policy Insitute (AFPI), a think tank that promotes Trump’s agenda. In that organization, Wolf is Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer & Chair of AFPI’s Center for Homeland Security & Immigration.
Donald Trump has pacified the U.S.-Mexican border, and I think that’s good for Mexico as well.