Plunge In Illegal Crossings Shows Biden Could’ve Secured Border

Upon President Donald Trump assuming office in January, illegal migrant apprehensions dropped sharply from more than 2,000 per day to just 786, according to new data. The dramatic change wasn’t by chance — Trump took immediate action to secure the border, proving former President Joe Biden simply chose to allow (and incentivize) the mass invasion.

Border patrol agents apprehended 96,035 migrants in December, but that number plummeted to 61,465 in January, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. According to ABC News, “From Jan. 21 through Jan. 31, the number of U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border dropped 85% from the same period in 2024. … In the 11 days after Jan. 20, migrants apprehended at ports of entry declined by 93%.”

None of this was accidental. As explained by my colleague John Daniel Davidson, upon taking office Trump signed a series of executive orders declaring a national emergency at the southern border and ordering construction of the border wall to resume. Trump also reinstated his “Remain in Mexico” policy to deter illegal crossings. Trump also authorized the National Guard and active duty military to work with Customs and Border Patrol agents to secure the border. The Trump administration also ended the use of the CBP One app that “the Biden administration had used to dole out mass paroles for illegal border-crossers — some 30,000 a month under Biden,” Davidson explained.

The Trump administration has also begun carrying out deportations, threatening tariffs on countries that refused to take back their own people. Colombia initially refused to take back Colombians who entered the United States illegally, and American planes transporting the illegal aliens were denied entry. Colombian President Gustavo Petro even said that Trump needed to create a “protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them.”

Trump told Petro to kick rocks and announced he would levy a 25 percent emergency tariff on all imported Colombian goods, as well as travel bans and visa sanctions. Shortly thereafter, Petro announced Colombia would take back Colombians.

As Davidson pointed out, “The Biden administration could have done all of this.”

Instead, as reported by my colleague Tristan Justice, Biden stopped construction of the border wall, “expanded the ‘illegal’ Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program,” reversed “Trump-era executive orders that enforced immigration law,” issued a deportation moratorium, lost track of thousands of children illegally in the country, resurrected an Obama-era parole program for illegals — and the list goes on.

As the border crisis worsened, Biden peddled the claim that he lacked authority to secure the southern border, telling a reporter last January that he had “done all I can do.”

“Just give me the power! … Give me the border patrol! Give me the people! The judges! Give me the people who can stop this and make it work right!” Biden told a reporter who asked whether he had done everything he could do via executive authority.

In the months following, illegal border crossings continued at record-high numbers. Miraculously in June, Biden suddenly had the “power” to sign an executive order to halt asylum claims temporarily.

It’s not that Biden ever lacked the power — Biden didn’t want to use the power he had to stop the illegal invasion of the country. As Davidson said, “A secure border was always within reach these past four years.”

But “Biden and the Democrats sold out their fellow Americans, threw open the borders, and then pretended they had no choice in the matter.”