Border Encounters Drop Dramatically on Trump’s First Day in Office

It would appear that migrants trying to get over the border illegally got the memo that a new sheriff is in town.

Crossings had already slowed with Trump coming into office, but his first day saw a rather dramatic drop.

The Joe Biden Era

When Joe Biden was in office, the borders were overrun almost from the first day he took office.

In 2022, we had a record 2.2 million encounters at the border, which does not include the gotaways.

Biden had days nearing 10,000 crossings in a single day, with an average of about 6,000 per day in 2022.

It was not until the waning days of the administration when Biden decided to crack down on crossings due to the presidential election, but even then, we were still seeing nearly 2,000 crossings a day.

They Got the Message

Over the final three days of Joe Biden’s term, there were a total of 3,908 encounters at the borders nationwide. These numbers were among the lowest Biden has seen during his entire administration.

But they were not as low as Trump after taking office for his second term. Over Trump’s first three days in office, there were only 2,523 encounters, with only 714 on his third day, about half of what we saw on Biden’s best days.

Just think about this… even if we bump that number up to 1,000, it would give Trump about 30,000 encounters in any given month. Joe Biden has months that were up over 220,000, with an average of more than 183,000 per month over 2022. If Trump’s numbers hold anywhere close to this, he will have less for the year than Biden had in two months for most of his term.

That is just the beginning of the good news for Trump, however.

Arrests Taking Place

As part of the immigration plan, Trump had announced that ICE would be snatching up as many criminal illegals as possible as soon as he took office.

Border Czar Tom Homan announced that on the very first day of the administration, 308 criminal illegals had been snagged.

Homan was giddy, stating, “So, they’re out there right now looking for the most serious public safety threats and throughout the country, we’re putting them back to work.”

At this time of the year, the numbers are typically a little lower anyway, so don’t expect them to stay this low, but it is a great sign. I would consider it a success if Trump can hold the crossings to under 60,000 per month.