Repub­li­cans cel­e­brate decline in bor­der arrests under Trump: ‘Ecsta­t­ic’

Posted in Economy  •  Published by
Republicans celebrate decline in border arrests under Trump: ‘Ecstatic’

March record­ed the low­est num­ber of ille­gal immi­grant arrests at the south­ern bor­der in near­ly six decades, a point that Repub­li­cans proud­ly attrib­uted to the Trump administration’s immi­gra­tion poli­cies.

The num­ber of immi­grants arrest­ed while attempt­ing to ille­gal­ly enter the Unit­ed States last month stood at rough­ly 7,200 com­pared to 137,000 in March 2024, accord­ing to U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion data.

House Home­land Secu­ri­ty Chair­man Mark Green (R‑TN) was thrilled about the results that the Trump admin­is­tra­tion had brought about with­in 100 days of tak­ing office.

“I’m ecsta­t­ic. We final­ly secured our south­ern bor­der,” Green told Fox Busi­ness Net­work host Maria Bar­tiro­mo on Wednes­day. “Pres­i­dent Trump did what he promised dur­ing the cam­paign.”

Sen. Bill Cas­sidy (R‑LA), chair­man of the Sen­ate Health, Edu­ca­tion, Labor, and Pen­sions Com­mit­tee, not­ed how sig­nif­i­cant a drop in arrests CBP has seen year over year.

“The south­ern bor­der is get­ting back under con­trol. March hit a record low for ille­gal cross­ings — just 7,181. That’s a 95% drop from last year,” Cas­sidy said. “This is exact­ly what Amer­i­cans asked for.”

House Major­i­ty Whip Tom Emmer (R‑MN) point­ed to the dif­fer­ence in how ille­gal immi­grants cross­ing the south­ern bor­der were han­dled under the Biden admin­is­tra­tion ver­sus the Trump admin­is­tra­tion.

“Under Bor­der Czar Kamala Har­ris, ille­gal aliens were able to stroll through the south­ern bor­der and were wel­comed with bus­es. Under Pres­i­dent @realdonaldtrump, the bor­der is CLOSED, with bor­der cross­ings down 94% from last March,” said Emmer.

Rep. Mon­i­ca De La Cruz (R‑TX), whose dis­trict is on the Texas-Mex­i­co bor­der, cheered on the achieve­ment.

“March record­ed the low­est south­west bor­der cross­ings in his­to­ry – aver­ag­ing just 230 per day,” De La Cruz wrote in a post to X. “This is the result of Pres­i­dent Trump enforc­ing immi­gra­tion law, repeal­ing Biden’s dis­as­trous open bor­der poli­cies, and allow­ing Bor­der Patrol Agents to do their job. In less than three months of this Admin­is­tra­tion, our bor­der is secure, and our nation is pro­tect­ed.”

Rep. Mar­lin Stutz­man (R‑IN) applaud­ed Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty Sec­re­tary Kristi Noem for her lead­er­ship over the past two months, adding that Trump “made no mis­take” in hir­ing her.

“1 year ago, a bor­der with Amer­i­can oper­a­tional con­trol seemed near­ly impos­si­ble with the way car­tels were uti­liz­ing Biden’s open door poli­cies to their advan­tage,” Stutz­man said in a state­ment to the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er. “March’s num­bers, and the work done on the bor­der, might as well be the new oper­a­tion warp speed with how quick­ly the admin­is­tra­tion was able to get the job done.”

How­ev­er, immi­gra­tion ana­lysts called the government’s por­tray­al of the March sta­tis­tics as the low­est in his­to­ry a mis­char­ac­ter­i­za­tion.

The Wash­ing­ton Office on Latin America’s Defense Over­sight pro­gram direc­tor, Adam Isac­son, said month­ly data is only avail­able going back to 2000, so it is not accu­rate to say March was the low­est month of all time.

“7,180 Bor­der Patrol appre­hen­sions in March is very few. The fewest since 2000, when USBP start­ed report­ing month­ly data,” Isac­son wrote in a post to X Wednes­day. “But month­ly aver­ages show that it’s not ‘low­est in his­to­ry.’ There were few­er migrants in the 50s-60s and before WW II.”

DEMOCRATS ASK HOW MANY WERE WRONGLY DEPORTED TO EL SALVADOR PRISON AMID MARYLAND MAN’S ARREST

Aaron Reich­lin-Mel­nick, a senior fel­low at the Amer­i­can Immi­gra­tion Coun­cil in Wash­ing­ton, called CBP’s com­ments on the March sta­tis­tics an “out­right lie” and point­ed to pre­vi­ous annu­al totals that sug­gest the aver­age month­ly arrests may have been low­er in 1967.