99,000 arrested at Mexican border in Trump’s first year versus 2 million in Biden’s first year

Four years ago, an average of 183,000 illegal immigrants were encountered and taken into custody every month, which is more in one month than over the past 12 months.

The Border Patrol does not publicly list how many arrests agents made only at the southern border going back to its inception in 1924, making it impossible to know the last time such a low figure was observed there.

However, the 98,701 figure is the lowest since 1967, when 94,778 arrests were made nationwide, according to Border Patrol data.

The southern border has historically seen more than 90% of all illegal immigrant arrests nationwide, as opposed to the Canadian border or coastal border.

Between 2010 and 2020, arrests in all but one year held between 300,000 and 500,000 per year.

In Trump’s first term in office, Border Patrol arrests quickly dropped off for several months in 2017 but then rose again sharply as Mexican cartels realized the United States had not changed any policies and the cartels’ methods would prevail at the border.

The Biden administration weathered a border crisis that brought millions of people to the U.S. and resulted in roughly 5 million being released into the country from the border, as well as hundreds of thousands who used parole programs to fly in from abroad, in addition to those who entered illegally and were not caught.

Republicans hammered Biden with claims that his immigration promises enticed people from around the world to travel to the U.S. Upon taking office, the Biden administration stopped turning away unaccompanied child migrants, attempted to halt Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations for 100 days, and suspended border wall construction.

Republicans accused Biden and former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of allowing the crisis to go on for more than three years before taking actions that resulted in reduced illegal immigration attempts.

Democrats and immigrant rights organizations have touted the impacts of the pandemic, halt on global travel, economic downfall, and rise of technology as fueling millions of people from outside Mexico and Central America to suddenly migrate to the U.S.

It was not until months before the 2024 election that the Biden administration took actions that led to fewer people attempting to cross the southern border illegally.

Trump’s first 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.

Within days of Trump’s election last November, arrests at the border dropped, which some dubbed the Trump effect.

Trump vowed as a 2024 presidential candidate to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and delivered on this promise, but in the lead-up to the midterm elections, Republican candidates have not significantly focused on reminding voters about Trump’s achievements at the border.

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Right-leaning immigration and campaign analysts told the Washington Examiner in interviews last week that candidates have seemed to skirt the topic and offered several likely reasons, including that it is old news, other issues are more pressing, and that it upset voters who are concerned about deportations, which make up the more controversial half of Trump’s immigration agenda.

CBP did not respond to a request for comment.