Illegal crossings along the United States’ southwest border reached a new low for Joe Biden’s presidency in July, according to preliminary reporting.
Data compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that unlawful crossings have been on a downward pattern since hitting a record-breaking high in December 2023, when the U.S. Border Patrol recorded nearly 250,000 border encounters.
The official statistics for July have yet to be released, but preliminary figures obtained by CBS News and the Associated Press reveal that U.S. Border Patrol agents made roughly 57,000 migrant apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border last month — an estimated 30% decrease from June.
The anticipated July figures would mark the lowest tally since September 2020, when about 55,000 illegal border crossings were recorded. It also falls below the monthly average of border crossings in all of 2019, under then-President Donald Trump.
According to government statistics, the record-breaking tally of Border Patrol encounters in December more than halved by January. The number of encounters rose slightly in February — the same month that Trump urged Republicans in Congress to kill a hard-fought bipartisan border security bill — but has steadily decreased each month since.
In June, after Biden took executive action to secure the border in the absence of meaningful immigration legislation, Border Patrol saw a staggering decline in illegal border crossings that has continued to drop since.
These numbers do not reflect people who were turned away by the CBP’s Office of Field Operations at official ports of entry. CBP told PEOPLE that the official July data will likely be released mid-month.
The latest border crossing figures come nearly two months after Biden announced that he would take executive actions to temporarily block migrants from receiving asylum if they illegally enter the U.S.
“These actions will be in effect when the Southern border is overwhelmed, and they will make it easier for immigration officers to quickly remove individuals who do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States,” explained a White House fact sheet released at the time.
“These actions are not permanent. They will be discontinued when the number of migrants who cross the border between ports of entry is low enough for America’s system to safely and effectively manage border operations,” the release added.
Whenever daily arrests drop below 1,500 over a seven-day average, the asylum halt will end, according to the Associated Press. However, it will be reinstated any time the number of daily arrests reaches a seven-day average of 2,500.
During Trump’s presidency, he notably proposed building a Mexico-U.S. border wall, which he claimed would be paid for by Mexico. In the end, the project primarily focused on reinforcing areas where barriers already existed and Mexico did not fund the wall upgrades. The project was never completed.
Trump has made border security a key focus of his reelection campaign, portraying the Biden-Harris administration as weak on immigration.
It was previously reported that Trump’s allies will put pressure on him to complete a border wall and militarize the border if he’s elected to another term.
The Trump-aligned Heritage Foundation has suggested that temporary protected status should also be stripped from nearly 700,000 individuals, many of whom settled in the U.S. decades ago, putting them at risk of deportation.
