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By Dan Gooding
Associate News Editor
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What's New
Crossings at the United States border with Mexico fell to the lowest level seen during President Joe Biden's term in November, dipping below 100,000 for the first time since January 2021.
The latest update from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) also included figures showing nearly a quarter of a million migrants had been removed from the country since Biden's tougher asylum ban came into force in June.
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Why It Matters
One of the defining issues of the President's term in the White House has been the crisis on the southwest border, with crossings hitting a record 301,981 in December 2023. The issue became a focus of President-elect Donald Trump's election campaign after Republicans argued Biden had not done enough to stem the flow of new arrivals.
Biden made a major political pivot this year, instituting via executive order a sweeping crackdown on asylum requests ahead of the election. But his success in cutting down asylum requests and illegal crossings was effectively too little, too late to help the Democrats in November.
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What To Know
The CBP update for November showed 94,190 so-called encounters, or known crossings, making it the first month since January 2021, when Biden took office, that the figure dipped below 100,000.
Between official ports of entry (POE), the border patrol detained 46,610 people, down 76 percent from the same time last year. More encounters were recorded at POEs—47,578—which one analyst said could have been the first such switch.
Crossings have steadily declined since an executive order from Biden in June which severely limited asylum entries into the U.S. Over 740 removal flights to 160-plus countries have been carried out since the rule was introduced.
CBP said that more border patrol agents have returned to the field in recent months, and that teams had carried out 349 migrant rescues along the hundreds of miles of desert, mountains and rivers which mark the border in the past month.
While illegal entries—or attempts to enter without an appointment—continued to fall, processing of those seeking legal entry continued despite threats by President-elect Trump to end some of the programs being utilized, such as humanitarian parole for those from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV).
Since that program was implemented, over 530,000 people have entered the country using the temporary visa process, which typically lasts two years. CBP said this had led to a 98 percent drop in illegal border crossings by those from the four countries.
Border patrol agents also seized 1,314 pounds of fentanyl as they continued to try to stop the flow of the lethal drug into the country. Drug seizures overall across the country increased by 3.6 percent compared to October.
What People Are Saying
Adam Isacson, who writes about immigration at The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), on X: "It will always be worse that the Biden admin gutted the right to seek asylum at the border. But it's also bad that the Biden admin has so thoroughly botched the job of telling its own story. It shouldn't be up to data dorks like me to point out developments like this."
Troy A. Miller, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner at CBP, in a press release: "Our enhanced enforcement efforts, combined with executive actions and coordination with Mexico and Central American countries in recent months, are having a sustained, meaningful impact. Every day the men and women of CBP are protecting American communities by targeting and disrupting the smuggling of bad actors and narcotics by transnational criminal organizations."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, on X: "Every day the men and women of CBP are protecting American communities by targeting and disrupting the smuggling of bad actors and narcotics by transnational criminal organizations."
Eric Ruark, director of research at NumbersUSA, told Newsweek in a statement: "One of the reasons is the 'Trump Effect,' which we also witnessed in 2016. Migrants are going to be unwilling to pay smugglers to transport them to the border, even if they can still enter the United States, if their expectation is it will be much more difficult to remain in the country under a Trump presidency.
"The real question is, how effective will enforcement be in a second Trump term? There was a surge of illegal immigration in his first term once the cartels realized that the tough talk of the campaign didn't translate into effective enforcement at the border or in the interior. With Tom Homan as the new "Border Czar," many expect a comprehensive approach to immigration law enforcement. One thing is for certain, the cartels who now control the southern border of the U.S. respond to realities on the ground, not rhetoric coming out of Washington, D.C."
What's Next
There will be one more monthly update from the border patrol before Biden leaves office on January 20. Trump has promised to end the CBP One app, which migrants have to use to secure an appointment at the southwest border, along with programs like CHNV. Some experts warn this could lead to a new surge in attempts to cross the border illegally, though Trump's promise of mass deportations could also temper crossings.
Update 12/20/24, 4:34 p.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement from Eric Ruark.
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