MCALLEN, Texas — President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has effectively halted illegal immigration at the southern border, particularly in one region that has historically been the busiest crossing spot in the country.
The Rio Grande Valley of South Texas has historically been a haven for human smuggling, cartel activity, and drug trafficking, but on Wednesday, this stretch of border with Mexico was quiet.
The Washington Examiner has traveled to the border on dozens of occasions since 2018, but for the first time, its journalists did not witness a single immigrant attempting to cross the Rio Grande during a predawn into late morning ride-along with Border Patrol.
Instead of hundreds of immigrants weaving through the muddied waters of the river and traversing stretches of farmland to find agents and surrender, those dirt roads were without footprints.
Texas National Guard soldiers stood at gates in the border wall with little to do but stand around. Several pleasure boaters casually cruised up or down the Rio Grande in search of adventure and relaxation. Roads were empty of transport coach buses and Border Patrol vehicles that normally take immigrants back and forth to detention sites.
Border Patrol agents were in an advantageous position guarding the international boundary nearly one month into Trump’s return to office and not long after he signed more than a dozen executive orders to get the border back in order.
Among those week one policy changes was a suspension of the admission of immigrants associated with the “invasion” at the southern border, a declaration of emergency at the border, troop deployment, a halt on refugee admissions, a return to holding asylum-seekers in Mexico rather than admitting them, and a stop to “catch and release” policies.
But Trump did not stop at the border. Within the interior of the United States, he has waged the “largest-ever” deportation operation, declared war on Mexican fentanyl producers bringing the deadly drug into the country, set up a migrant camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and posted dozens of mug shots of criminal illegal immigrants rounded up since Jan. 20.
The White House said the early results on the southern border spoke to the immediate actions that Trump took on Day One, which are having a meaningful impact on border security.
“Less than a month into his second term and President Trump has already delivered on the resounding mandate that the American people gave him in November to put an end to the Biden administration’s malfeasant handling of our southern border,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in an email to the Washington Examiner. “The Trump administration is committed to a whole-of-government approach to protect our borders, mass deport criminal illegal migrants, and enforce our immigration laws to put Americans and America First.”
The public campaign against illegal immigration has translated into definable results in the stretch of the border that runs along 320 miles of the Rio Grande.
A day before the Washington Examiner’s visit, just 47 illegal immigrants were apprehended on Tuesday in this stretch for a full 24-hour period. It is a far cry from the 1,500 seen per day in September 2022.
“On average nowadays, we’re looking at between 100 to 150 sector-wide, depending on the days,” said Andres Garcia, a Border Patrol agent and public affairs official in the Rio Grande Valley who led the Washington Examiner on a five-hour tour of the region Wednesday. “The number’s decreased in a big percentage, down here, for us.”
Even under the cover of darkness, which has historically been a top time of the day for Mexican cartels to push immigrants across the river, the Rio Grande sat silent.
Ladders were on the ground not far from the border wall, where smugglers had attempted to use them to get over the levy, albeit unsuccessfully. Elsewhere, multiple colors of bracelets were left behind in trampled pathways that led up from the water. The bracelets, much like those handed out at concerts, symbolize how much money each immigrant owes the smuggler responsible for moving him or her into the U.S.
Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-TX), who represents part of the Rio Grande Valley, said arrests at the border were down significantly, according to state numbers shared with her office.
“With President Trump in office, U.S. Border Patrol agents are finally permitted to fulfill their duties and protect our communities,” De La Cruz said in a statement. “While Democrats continue to fearmonger and spread misinformation, it is clear that our communities are now safer, our border is more secure, and less illegal immigrants are making the dangerous trek across our border.”
Hundreds of green multiperson inflatable rafts line the river’s edge on the U.S. side, where smugglers used to transport immigrants across the river regularly, no longer needed by the cartels.
The lasting impact of border wall
The region is composed of 55 miles of border wall that was erected by the Trump administration, plus an additional 54 miles installed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) since 2021.
The Biden administration, which originally canceled more than 300 miles of prefunded border wall construction unfinished by the time Trump left office in 2021, later relinquished and filled in 10 gaps between wall projects in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
The wall has made a difference in deterring some immigrants from crossing and for those who choose to attempt to cross in unfenced areas, the wall funnels them to certain points where agents are waiting to intercept them, said Garcia.
Miles of 30-foot-tall barrier stretch along the roughly 320 river miles and 200 coastal miles with 19 counties falling in its jurisdiction.
White House border czar Tom Homan said the reduction of illegal crossers was the response to Trump administration policies in just the first few weeks, though the 450 miles of border wall installed during Trump’s first term in office was still having an impact on illegal crossings.
“President Trump and his policies, executive actions and vision prove once again that he is a game changer and keeps his promise to the American people,” Homan told the Washington Examiner in a text message. “I am honored to work for him.”
Immigrants quickly returned to Mexico
The occasional immigrant who comes across the border here is not caught and released into the U.S. as was the case for the more than 5 million illegal immigrants during the Biden administration. Instead, they are being returned south of the border to Mexico at increasing rates.
The large majority of immigrants caught by federal law enforcement agents here are highly likely to be returned to Mexico due to a long-standing treaty with the Mexican government that guarantees it will take back Mexicans, as well as certain other nationalities of immigrants.
Through a process called expedited removal that has existed for decades but has been increasingly used over the past year and recent weeks, immigrants taken into custody are booked and then typically repatriated back to Mexico within hours that same day.
Immigrants in this region are walked back across the nearby international bridge in Hidalgo, Texas, after they have attempted to cross the southern border illegally.
Rod Kise, public affairs specialist for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said Mexico will not accept back every nationality of immigrant but does allow “most” to be returned.
Mexico beefed up security at northern and southern borders
Immigrants returned to Mexico at the bridge are met by some of the 10,000 Mexican troops that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to deploy to her country’s northern border to stave off U.S. tariffs that Trump had threatened in early February.
“That’s always a big help on their side because we actually conduct mirror patrol, which means we patrol on the U.S. side and they patrol on the Mexican side,” said Garcia. “It’s a big help in case a migrant tries to cross illegally into the U.S. side and he runs back to the Mexican side.”
Mexican army soldiers and National Guard troops were deployed to Mexican border states of Baja California, Sonora, and Tamaulipas on Feb. 4.
Troops were dispatched to the Mexican cities of Reynosa and Matamoros, which are across the border from the Rio Grande Valley of southeastern Texas.
On the Texas side of the border, troops deployed by Abbott stood by large piles of metal fencing and wire under the bridge in Hidalgo.
Traffic overhead of pedestrians legally going through inspection and being admitted into the U.S. unfolded predawn as federal police and military below the bridge waited and watched for anyone to jump in the river and try to cross.
Ending a yearslong crisis
The decline in illegal immigrant arrests began after peaking at 250,000 arrests nationwide in December 2023. In June 2024, the numbers had been cut nearly in half.
Last summer, Biden tightened up the asylum process and increased removal flights, making it far more likely that illegal immigrants would not be admitted into the country, prompting fewer to attempt to cross the border illegally. The effort to slow down illegal traffic occurred months before the November election when immigration was a top concern for voters.
The number of illegal immigrants arrested at the nation’s borders has decreased since November further and continued to plummet since Trump took office Jan. 20.
The more than 2,000 arrests made per day in much of the fall months has dropped to less than 500 per day borderwide, according to Homan, who spoke with reporters in Washington last week.
Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks announced earlier this month that the number of apprehensions at the northern, southern, and coastal borders was down 91% compared to the same time last year.
Gary Joiner, director of communications at the Texas Farm Bureau, said farmers in Texas have reported to him that police from local, state, and federal agencies are out in droves not seen before and that the number of immigrants who have crossed and trespassed through farmers property has continued to decline.
“As far as just the foot traffic … fences being cut, the crops being trampled on,” said Joiner in a phone call. “It has been going down and had been less and less, and that has continued, they have not seen an increase in that type of activity. It continues to be at a much lower level than where it was.”
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The biggest problem facing the region is no longer border security, as residents have lamented for the past several years, but the lack of water, Joiner said.
“Water is the No. 1 issue. I think it supplanted border security as the No. 1 topic of conversation among farmers and ranchers in the Rio Grande Valley, if you believe that,” said Joiner. “We are at a crisis point because of the water scarcity and the lack of water that is due to the United States from Mexico, from this 1944 Water Treaty.”