Illegal crossings in the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector, once a notorious hotspot for unlawful migration in Texas, have nosedived by nearly 40% in just the first full week of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. And it’s not just Del Rio—this sharp decline is playing out across the entire southwest border as Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration shifts from campaign promise to real-world enforcement. The dramatic shift comes as a breath of fresh air for Border Patrol agents, who, after years of being reduced to little more than overworked clerks under the Biden administration, are finally getting back to doing what they were hired to do—securing the border.
The numbers tell the story. The count of suspected “got-aways”—migrants who manage to evade capture—has plummeted in Del Rio, dropping more than 60% from 229 to just 82 in the week following Trump’s inauguration. A similar trend is emerging in the Texas Rio Grande Valley, where daily migrant apprehensions tumbled from 1,154 in the week before Trump took office to a mere 211 just days after his return. Even the number of got-aways in that region dropped nearly 40%. The explanation? Simple—Border Patrol is no longer playing concierge to illegal migrants, processing and releasing them into the country at record speed. Instead, Trump’s policies have put the agency back in charge, arresting and deporting unlawful entrants rather than handing them a court date and a free ride into the interior. Meanwhile, in California’s San Diego Sector, the Biden-era revolving door has slammed shut—migrants are no longer being released en masse but instead flown to different border locations via military aircraft for repatriation.
Perhaps the most striking reversal involves illegal migrants from China. Under the previous administration, nearly 700 Chinese nationals were caught crossing illegally in San Diego in a single week in April 2024, only to be swiftly released into the U.S. under questionable asylum claims. That loophole has now been shut tight. Thanks to Trump’s policies, these migrants are being sent back to Mexico the moment they are apprehended, eliminating yet another abused pathway into the country. Meanwhile, in Arizona’s Tucson Sector, Border Patrol agents teamed up with the Sonoran Border Unit and the Foreign Operations Branch to dismantle a cartel-run scout camp used to track law enforcement movements and smuggle contraband. The operation led to multiple cartel arrests and the seizure of high-tech surveillance equipment used to coordinate drug and human trafficking across the border.
The drastic decline in illegal crossings is giving Border Patrol something they haven’t had in years: the ability to focus on actual border security instead of paperwork and babysitting. With fewer resources tied up in processing and releasing migrants, agents are now able to redeploy into remote areas that had effectively been ceded to smugglers under Biden’s policies. Trump’s enforcement-first approach is proving what conservatives have argued all along—when illegal crossings stop being rewarded with easy access to the U.S., the numbers drop almost instantly.
For those who have watched the border descend into chaos over the past four years, these early results confirm that Trump is making good on his promise to restore order. While critics will predictably cry foul, calling the crackdown harsh or inhumane, the reality is that enforcing immigration laws is neither extreme nor radical—it’s simply the duty of any functioning government. If this first week is any indication, the days of open-border policies are rapidly coming to an end, and common sense is finally making a long-overdue return to America’s southern border.
