Major win
The quietest border in half a century
Border Patrol apprehensions at the southwest border have fallen to their lowest level since 1970, and fiscal 2026 is on pace to go lower still.
A quiet border means fewer people entering unvetted and fewer dollars flowing to the smugglers who run the trade.
From rush hour to midnight: the southwest border goes quiet
Border Patrol made 8,870 apprehensions at the southwest border in August 2026, 97% below the December 2023 peak. Fiscal 2026 closed at a preliminary 98,708, according to Customs and Border Protection.
Why you should care
When hundreds of people cross every hour, the cost does not stay at the border. It shows up in emergency rooms, in school enrollment and in police budgets, often far from Texas or Arizona, and the same taxpayers cover all of it. Every crossing also means a fee paid to a smuggler. A quiet border lets agents see what is coming, lets towns plan their budgets, and takes customers away from the cartels.
December 2023 was the peak. That month, Border Patrol agents caught 249,740 people crossing the southwest border between the ports of entry, roughly 336 every hour, day and night.
Drive a downtown interstate at five o'clock on a Friday. Bumper to bumper, horns, brake lights to the horizon. When a road is that packed, nobody can tell who belongs on it, and anyone who wants to slip past has the whole crowd for cover. That was the border.
Now drive the same road at 2 a.m. In August 2026, Border Patrol made 8,870 apprehensions at the southwest border, 97% below that December peak and 94% below the average month under President Biden. In April 2026, agents averaged 298 apprehensions a day. At the peak, they caught more than that in an hour.
A year that fits inside a month
The yearly totals tell it even better. Fiscal 2025, which ended in September 2025, finished with 237,538 apprehensions, the fewest since 1970, according to Pew Research Center.
Fiscal 2026 is lower still. Through August it stood at 89,760, by the Center for Immigration Studies' count. That eleven-month total is smaller than any single month from February 2021 through May 2024. Preliminary figures from Customs and Border Protection, released October 16, put the full year at 98,708, about 95% below the average year under President Biden. CBP also counted 379,243 encounters nationwide, which it calls the lowest in its history. Those are Border Patrol's own counts of people caught. How many got past without being caught is harder to say, because the administration has not been publishing its count of these "gotaways," and that number deserves daylight too.
The decline did start before Inauguration Day. Pew credits stepped-up enforcement by Mexico under an April 2024 agreement with the Biden administration, along with asylum limits President Biden imposed in June and September 2024. Those steps were real, and they helped.
But all of them were in place in December 2024, when Border Patrol still caught 47,320 people. In February 2025, the first full month of President Trump's term, it caught 8,349. Same Mexico. Same desert. What changed in between was Washington: a national emergency at the border, military support for agents, and the shutdown of the CBP One app that migrants had used to seek asylum.
The interstate at 2 a.m. isn't empty. A car still comes through now and then. The difference is that every set of headlights gets noticed.
Sources and footnotes
- Fox News: Trump DHS hits 16 straight months with 0 releases at the border (Sept. 16, 2026)
- Center for Immigration Studies: Southwest Border Apprehension Numbers Remain at All-Time Lows (Sept. 17, 2026)
- Pew Research Center: Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border are at their lowest level in more than 50 years (Feb. 2, 2026)
- San Angelo LIVE: CBP: Trump Administration Delivers a Full Year of Zero Releases at the Border (May 15, 2026)
- Texas Scorecard: Trump Administration Announces 16 Consecutive Months of Zero Border Releases (Sept. 18, 2026)
- Just the News (The Center Square): Illegal border crossings remain historically low in June, drug seizures up (July 19, 2026)
- Voz: DHS reports 95% drop in arrests at the southwest border in 2026 (Oct. 16, 2026)
- Just the News (Center Square): Southwest illegal border crossings reach lowest level for one year in U.S. history (Oct. 18, 2026)