Illegal crossings in the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector, once one of the busiest corridors for unlawful migration in Texas, have plummeted nearly 40% in just the first full week of President Donald Trump’s return to office. This sharp decline isn’t limited to Del Rio—it’s happening all across the southwest border as Trump’s promised crackdown on illegal immigration shifts from campaign rhetoric to concrete policy. The reversal is a major relief for Border Patrol agents who, after years of acting as a taxpayer-funded processing service under the Biden administration, are finally back to doing their actual job—securing the border.
The drop in crossings isn’t the only significant shift. The number of suspected “got-aways”—migrants who evade capture—also fell dramatically in the Del Rio Sector, dropping over 60% from 229 to just 82 within a week of Trump’s inauguration. A similar pattern is emerging in the Texas Rio Grande Valley, where daily migrant apprehensions plummeted from 1,154 in the week before Trump took office to a mere 211 the weekend following his swearing-in. Even got-away numbers in that region saw a nearly 40% decline. This isn’t happening by accident—Border Patrol is no longer being forced to process and release migrants into the interior of the country. Instead, under Trump’s policies, the agency has shifted back to its original mission: arresting and deporting illegal entrants. Meanwhile, in California’s San Diego Sector, border authorities have ended Biden’s policy of mass releases. Now, migrants are being flown to other border regions via military aircraft for repatriation rather than being handed a court date and a bus ticket to the city of their choosing.
One of the most striking examples of this turnaround involves illegal migrants from China. Under the Biden administration, nearly 700 Chinese nationals were apprehended in San Diego in a single week in April 2024, only to be promptly released into the country under dubious asylum claims. That loophole has now been slammed shut. Under Trump’s policies, these migrants are being sent back to Mexico at the time of apprehension rather than being waved through the system. Meanwhile, in Arizona’s Tucson Sector, Border Patrol agents, working alongside the Sonoran Border Unit and the Foreign Operations Branch, dismantled a cartel-run scout camp used for monitoring law enforcement and facilitating smuggling. The joint operation resulted in cartel arrests and the seizure of surveillance devices used to coordinate illegal crossings and drug trafficking.
This dramatic reduction in illegal migration is giving Border Patrol something it hasn’t had in years: the ability to actually patrol and control remote areas of the border that had been abandoned under Biden’s disastrous policies. With fewer resources being spent on processing and releasing migrants, agents are redeploying into the rugged terrain where smugglers and cartels once operated with impunity. Trump’s enforcement-first strategy is already proving effective, demonstrating that when illegal crossings are no longer rewarded with easy entry into the U.S., the numbers begin to decline quickly.
For those who have watched the border crisis spiral out of control over the past four years, these early results send a strong message that Trump is making good on his pledge to restore order. While critics will predictably cry foul, branding the crackdown as cruel or excessive, the reality is simple—Trump is enforcing the law, something the previous administration seemed entirely unwilling to do. If this first week is any indication, the open-border policies of the last administration are being swiftly dismantled, and law and order are making a long-overdue return to America’s borders.
