Biden administration officials took an early victory lap for a sharp decline in the number of known illegal border crossings since it rescinded the pandemic protocol Title 42 last week.

A senior Department of Homeland Security official shared with reporters in a virtual briefing Monday that fewer than 5,000 immigrants have been apprehended illegally crossing the border or seeking admission at ports of entry in each of the past three days — an enormous turnaround considering border officials had braced for a D-Day-like event come May 11.

"We have averaged, you know, below 5,000 encounters each of the last three days and obviously that's, you know, less than half of the more than 10,000 we had encountered each day in the three days leading up to the lifting of Title 42," said Blas Nuñez-Neto, DHS assistant secretary for border and immigration policy.

Ahead of last Thursday's lifting of a policy that had allowed border officials to turn away illegal immigrants rather than take them into custody, the DHS had warned of 13,000 to 18,000 illegal immigrant arrests per day once Title 42 ended.

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Just Sunday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas swept three Sunday news shows and celebrated the 50% decline in border encounters in the initial days since Title 42 ended.

In total, more than 75,000 people were encountered at the border in the week leading up to Title 42 ending, one of the highest levels recorded in national history.

The DHS on Monday touted its work quickly removing illegal immigrants from the country after they have crossed the border.

Nuñez-Neto said "thousands" of people had been pushed out of the country since Friday, including 2,400 who were sent to Mexico.

"Since Friday, hundreds of non-citizens, including Venezuelans, Cubans, and Nicaraguans have already been returned to Mexico under Title 8 authorities," Nuñez-Neto said. "Since we resumed Title 8 processing on Friday morning, we have repatriated thousands of noncitizens, including single adults and families to more than 10 countries such as Colombia, Honduras, and Peru."

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Last week, former President Donald Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social, "TITLE 42 EXPIRES NEXT WEEK. This date will go down in infamy!!! Our Borders will completely collapse. We will be, officially, a THIRD WORLD NATION!"

Trump also claimed that “hundreds of thousands of people will be pouring into our Country today from 'parts unknown.'"