The number of illegal immigrants arrested while attempting to enter the United States from Mexico dropped in June to the lowest level since the Trump administration, a big win for President Joe Biden four months ahead of the election .
Across the nearly 2,000-mile southern border, Border Patrol agents apprehended 83,536 illegal immigrants last month, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data released Monday evening. It is the lowest figure since former President Donald Trump left office in January 2021.
The Biden administration took a victory lap and attributed the drop from a peak of nearly 250,000 arrests in December 2023 to recent policy changes implemented this spring. The federal government released the numbers on the first night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“Recent border security measures have made a meaningful impact on our ability to impose consequences for those crossing unlawfully, leading to a decline of 29% in U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions from May to June,” Troy A. Miller, CBP senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, said in a statement .
CBP reported having seen a 50% drop in the seven-day average of arrests between the first week of June, when Biden effectively barred asylum-seekers, to the final week of the month.
The Department of Homeland Security has touted more repatriation flights of illegal immigrants since Biden's early June executive actions. In June, more than 70,000 illegal immigrants were removed at the border or deported from within the country, according to DHS.
Prior to June, the number of monthly arrests in May stood at 117,901.
Of the arrests, more than 49,000 people were single adults, and another nearly 28,000 crossed with a family member. The remaining roughly 6,600 were unaccompanied children.
The drop in June marked the fourth consecutive month that arrests have declined as the Biden administration publicly and privately pressured its Mexican counterparts to do more to stop migrants from traveling through the country to get to the U.S.
In addition, 41,800 immigrants who were not refugees were processed at the ports of entry for admission in June through the CBP One app, which allows immigrants to schedule appointments with customs officers rather than entering illegally.
Since the CBP One app was rolled out in January 2023, the Biden administration has screened more than 680,000 immigrants for admission through the CBP One app.
Another function of the CBP One app allows immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to apply from abroad to be admitted to the U.S. Since its launching, nearly half a million people from those four countries have been admitted into the U.S. by flying into the country.
Biden’s ascendance to the Oval Office marked a sharp increase in the number of immigrants who attempted to get into the country without permission.
Illegal immigrant arrests ticked up within weeks of Biden’s executive orders that halted border wall construction, canceled all pending deportations for 100 days, and stopped requirements that asylum-seekers remain in Mexico, among other actions.
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Arrests hung between an average of 30,000 and 50,000 people intercepted each month in the decade leading up to 2021, but in the three years and four months of the Biden administration, they have largely stayed between 120,000 and 250,000 arrests per month.
The number of arrestees does not include “getaways,” the Border Patrol term for illegal immigrants who are observed on camera or through ground sensors entering the country but are unable to be tracked down and arrested.
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