The worst border crisis that America has ever faced has been solved exactly six weeks after President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day, a promise kept that will forever be part of his presidential legacy.
And according to one of the nation’s top immigration think tanks, it should last for at least as long as Trump’s four-year term, saving the country billions in welfare costs.
“We know enough now to justify a declaration about the greatest mass-migration border crisis ever to have stricken the United States and probably any other country in the world: It is now, finally, at its end,” said Todd Bensman of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.
“A fitting tombstone might read ‘RIP, Mass Migration Crisis: January 2021 to January 2024,’” added Bensman, an expert on the crisis.
Bensman, who predicted and charted the crisis under Biden, even penning a book about it titled Overrun, noted that the two Inauguration Days four years apart will long be compared as the most disastrous and successful days in the war on illegal immigration into the United States.
I’m calling it: The greatest mass migration event in US history is over, but there are caveats. My argument and reasoning:https://t.co/wNUfS6JHjD
— Todd Bensman (@BensmanTodd) March 3, 2025
“Bam: As quickly as Biden opened the border on his 2021 Inauguration Day, Donald Trump closed it before the sun set on his in 2025,” he blogged on the CIS site Monday.
When Biden arrived, he immediately brushed aside the border security agenda set up by Trump during the Republican’s first term. Immigration hawks said that signaled that the border was open and millions poured over, legally and illegally, during Biden’s four years.
While some 350,000 migrants entered every month near the end of Biden’s term, there were just 300 a day last month.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff @StephenM COOKS Fake News CNN's Brianna Keilar:
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 18, 2025
"The federal government will find EVERY illegal alien who is stealing American taxpayer dollars — and that's what Americans expect to happen. I don't even fathom the premise of your question." pic.twitter.com/urhbyRrPVz
When Trump returned to the Oval Office in January, he reimposed his anti-illegal immigrant agenda, unleashed border czar Tom Homan, and forced deals on Mexico and Canada that helped to add their anti-migration efforts to the border.
“There are no more needy foreign newcomers showing up with hands outstretched,” said Bensman.
“Because of the multi-layered policy architecture Trump has already put in place, the border has moved closer than ever to the probably unattainable goal of full operational control required of the Department of Homeland Security,” said Bensman.
What’s more, it did not require any comprehensive immigration package like the one promoted by House and Senate Democrats and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“No one on Trump’s Inauguration Day suddenly cured climate change and the long list of other ‘root causes’ that supposedly drove swamping numbers of migrants over hapless Border Patrol agents and detention centers starting on Biden’s inauguration day. Instead, it was always something far simpler available to any president: To open or close the border gate with the push of a couple of policy buttons,” said the expert.
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Should Trump, Homan and the president’s border team continue to keep the pressure on, the crisis should fade away for their full term.
Bensman concluded: “All of this layered architecture has dramatically lowered the odds that many foreign national gamblers are going to lay down their smuggling money on the green felt. And that’s why I feel comfortable declaring that the greatest mass migration crisis in U.S. history is over and the southern border is closed. At least for the next four years.”