Homeland Security on Monday reported its best border numbers since just after President Biden took office after being forced to limit a fraud-filled “parole” program that had been admitting as many as 30,000 people a month.

The department said it detected 158,988 unauthorized entries in August, down from about 170,000 in July and the best numbers since February 2021, when it recorded about 101,000.

At the southern border, the Border Patrol actually saw arrests go up. But entries at the nation’s interior — airports and seaports — plummeted as the parole program was paused.

The White House celebrated the numbers, saying they proved Mr. Biden’s new tougher rhetoric, which he adopted early this summer, is working.

Spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez also complained that Congress hasn’t helped.

“The Biden-Harris Administration has taken effective action, and Republican officials continue to do nothing,” he said.

The White House said the number of illegal immigrants nabbed by Border Patrol agents is now lower than it’s been since September 2020, amid the pandemic border shutdown.

The number of unaccompanied alien children nabbed at the southern border ticked up in August, as did the number of migrants traveling as families. Both are well below their peak rates from December, however.

The biggest change was at U.S. interior ports of entry, where the 30,000 parolees had been arriving each month.

After a devastating internal report in July found startling levels of fraud — sponsor applications were being filed in the name of dead people and gang members, and one even application used former first lady Michelle Obama’s passport number — the administration halted the program.

It reopened it earlier this month, insisting it had addressed the fraud.

Still, the result was 24,000 fewer unauthorized migrants showing up at the airports and seaports in August compared to June, before the pause.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.