Border Patrol arrests of illegal immigrants who attempted to enter the United States from Mexico this year were the lowest in 55 years, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Total apprehensions in fiscal 2025, most of which occurred under President Donald Trump, were 237,565 between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2025.
The last time annual arrests reached this level was 1970, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That year, roughly 231,000 illegal immigrants were encountered.
“We have had the most secure border in American history and our end of year numbers prove it. We have shattered multiple records this year and once again we have broken a new record with the lowest number of Southwest border apprehensions in 55 years,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “Under President Trump, we have empowered and supported our law enforcement to do their job and they have delivered.”
The more than 237,000 arrests this past year are almost one-tenth of the 2.2 million arrests that the Border Patrol made on the southern border in 2022, at the height of the border crisis under former President Joe Biden.
The total year’s figure is less than one month’s worth of arrests under Biden. In December 2023, Border Patrol agents took nearly 250,000 illegal immigrants into custody.
Since Trump took office and imposed executive actions to secure the southern border, between 4,500 and 9,000 immigrants have been encountered trying to enter the country illegally per month, down from 100,000 to 250,000 encounters per month under Biden.
During the Biden administration, roughly 7 million illegal immigrants were arrested. The White House said the days of mass migration into the U.S. ended when Trump took office.
“After Biden-era chaos unleashed a record-shattering invasion, the seismic turnaround proves that strong leadership can, in fact, stop the flood of illegal crossings, deadly cartels, and security threats dead in their tracks,” the White House said in a statement issued Monday.
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Within days of Trump’s election last November, arrests at the border dropped, which some dubbed the Trump effect.
Trump’s first historic acts in the White House included more than a dozen executive actions specifically focused on the border and immigration, which were among the first of more than 200 actions that his office promised to push through in his first days.
