"All Quiet on the Western Front" is the title of Erich Maria Remarque’s moving World War I novel. As of July 2025, it’s all quiet on the U.S. southern border. How quiet?
In June, the Border Patrol encountered just over 6,000 inadmissible aliens at ports of entry. Under President Joe Biden, they sometimes saw twice that many in a single day. The total number of inadmissible aliens encountered in June, at both our northern and southern borders, at or between ports of entry, was 25,243 – the lowest monthly total in U.S. history.
And of all those encountered in June, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released zero - for the second month in a row. In May, DHS also released not a single alien they stopped trying to enter the United States illegally. In May 2024, in contrast, they released at least 62,000 – not counting more than 30,000 inadmissible aliens they let in every month using immigration parole, and thousands more "gotaways" who snuck in without being stopped or identified.
BORDER CROSSINGS PLUMMET TO HISTORIC LOWS; TRUMP'S ENFORCEMENT POLICIES YIELD BIG RESULTS
Other than abusing parole, the Biden administration disguised the entry of millions of inadmissible aliens into our country through catch-and-release: detain them for a few hours, do cursory data entry, then move them inside where they are hard to find and deport later.
Illegal border crossings have dropped immensely under President Donald Trump. FILE: In an aerial view, a U.S. Border Patrol agent searches for immigrant footprints while looking through the U.S.-Mexico border fence on March 9, 2024, in Yuma, Arizona. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testified in December 2023 that DHS was releasing upwards of 85% of aliens caught entering illegally. That was the worst month for encounters of inadmissible aliens on the southern border in U.S. history – 251,178. That means around 213,500 were likely released – about 10 times the TOTAL number of aliens encountered last month on all our borders combined. More inadmissible, unidentified aliens were released, in one month, than the current population of Tallahassee, Florida.
Making it hard for a future president to restore the rule of law was part of the plan – and now, the legacy media is doing its part by painting routine law enforcement as authoritarian excess.
'TRUMP EFFECT' TOUTED AS SOUTHERN BORDER NUMBERS STAY LOW, INCLUDING NEW RECORD
Under President Donald Trump, aliens entering without permission are mostly being detained pending the completion of their due immigration process – as the law explicitly requires. In some cases, that will mean an expedited removal process under the Immigration and Nationality Act. But many more will exploit our overly generous and backed-up asylum process to slow things down.
Reportedly, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will no longer allow routine bond hearings for aliens to ask an immigration judge to release them pending their process. Why? Because, when detained, aliens always show up for each hearing. They want it done quickly, especially if they know they have no credible asylum case. When let loose in the country, free to work, aliens want to drag it out. Many don’t show up for their immigration court dates. In Biden’s term, more than half a million aliens didn’t show up for their removal hearings.
Detaining illegal aliens throughout their entire process means that if the result is an order for their removal (that is, deportation to their home country or another that will take them), the judge’s decision can be carried out quickly and safely. If they’re released into the U.S. interior, it takes time and staff to find and re-arrest them later.
NEW DATA REVEALS BORDER CROSSINGS REACH RECORD LOWS AMID TRUMP ADMIN'S CRACKDOWN
Speed and efficiency are in everyone’s interest, and in normal times, an expedited removal case should take only a few weeks from start to finish. Asylum cases can take longer, especially with appeals, but that should still mean only months, not years.
The pace has slowed in recent years due to the massive backlog caused by unchecked illegal entry and meritless asylum claims. But the Big Beautiful Bill has $170 billion to hire 300 more immigration judges and more DHS staff, increase detention capacity to 100,000, and more. Increased detention will remove incentives for aliens to make baseless claims.
Trump ended catch-and-release as the default policy for inadmissible aliens. He closed the supposed "lawful pathways" of parole and government encouragement of asylum claims. He reinstated ‘Remain in Mexico’ and agreements with safe third countries to take deported aliens. He resumed building a wall to impede easy crossing of the border with Mexico. And Trump stopped funding the web of activist NGOs that got fat from facilitating mass illegal migration.
BORDER CZAR TOM HOMAN REVEALS UNPRECEDENTED SUCCESS IN TRUMP'S BORDER STRATEGY
Making it hard for a future president to restore the rule of law was part of the plan – and now, the legacy media is doing its part by painting routine law enforcement as authoritarian excess.
Equally important, Trump had the fortitude to back federal agents in doing their duty. Under Biden, ICE was told to ignore most illegal immigrants – just like police are obliged by politicians to look the other way in our big cities when it comes to myriad crimes that undermine the quality of life for everyone. Now, agents are out doing their jobs, enforcing federal law. The media and some politicians are apoplectic to see that it’s working.
While Biden complained of invisible forces beyond his control, or asked for more money or new laws from Congress, Trump acted. He withdrew the red carpet for the world’s inadmissible economic migrants, and they stopped coming.
Even if most media outlets pretend to be perplexed at the relationship between policy and result, Americans can link cause and effect, and let’s hope they get used to it. Then they will never allow a future president – of either party – to abandon his duties and throw open the border again.