The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is touting a sweeping reversal of the Biden-era border crisis, declaring that the United States has now gone a full year without releasing into the country any illegal aliens apprehended by Border Patrol at the southwest border.
According to Breitbart, DHS officials say April marked the twelfth consecutive month in which Border Patrol agents at the U.S.-Mexico line released ZERO illegal border crossers into the nations interior, a benchmark they argue reflects the most secure border in American history under President Donald Trump. They report a 94 percent decline in illegal border apprehensions compared to the Biden administration, noting that current daily crossings are now lower than what agents were forced to process in a single hour at the peak of the 2023 surge.
Twelve straight months of ZERO releases at the border. Under President Donald Trumps leadership, we are delivering the most secure border in American history, said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, framing the shift as a direct repudiation of the prior administrations lenient approach. The days of catch and release are over. We are enforcing the nations laws and sending illegal aliens back to their home countries.
The contrast with the Biden?Mayorkas years is stark, particularly for frontline agents who watched detention facilities overflow while Washington refused to close the loopholes driving mass migration. Two years ago, Border Patrol agents, acting under directives from President Joe Biden and then?DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, released more than 68,000 illegal aliens into the U.S. interior in a single month, according to CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott.
What a difference, America! Scott said in a written statement on Friday, underscoring how quickly the policy landscape has shifted once the White House embraced enforcement over accommodation. For conservatives who long warned that lax border policies would invite chaos, the numbers now being reported by DHS are being held up as proof that political willnot capacitywas the missing ingredient.
DHS officials provided Breitbart Texas with detailed statistics illustrating the scale of the turnaround in both illegal immigration and border enforcement. In May 2024, Breitbart Texas reported that 129,000 migrants were apprehended along the southwest border with Mexico the previous month, bringing total apprehensions for Fiscal Year 2024 to 1.2 million illegal aliens by that point.
By contrast, the current fiscal year shows a dramatic collapse in unlawful crossings as Trump?era policies have been restored and strengthened. So far in Fiscal Year 2026, which began on October 1, 2025, the year?to?date total stands at just 54,789 apprehensions a 95 percent drop, according to CBP reports obtained by Breitbart.
The enforcement shift is not limited to human smuggling; it is also reshaping the fight against the cartels drug pipelines. DHS reports substantial increases in the seizure of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, and marijuana, crediting the gains to the fact that CBP officers and agents are no longer tied down babysitting massive waves of illegal aliens in overcrowded facilities.
CBP has seized 61% more drugs this fiscal year through April than it seized during the same period of FY 2024, and CBP seized 53% more drugs this fiscal year than it seized on average during the last four years in this same period, DHS reported, suggesting that restored deterrence at the border is directly undermining cartel operations. With agents freed from processing duties and returned to frontline patrols, the administration argues that the border is finally being treated as a national security priority rather than a political liability.
DHS officials say the combination of plummeting illegal crossings and surging drug seizures highlights the magnitude of the reversal from the Biden?Mayorkas era, when more than 68,000 migrants were released into the U.S. interior in a single month. Every minute of every day, President Trumps border security policies are making every American safer, Commissioner Scott said, insisting that the data now on display vindicate years of conservative criticism of open?border policies.
With year?to?date apprehensions down 95 percent and drug interdictions sharply higher, DHS maintains that the numbers speak for themselves and that the long?criticized era of catch?and?release has effectively been brought to an end. For veterans of the Border Patrol like Randy Clark, a 32?year agent who retired as Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations in the Del Rio Sector, and for Breitbart Texas?Border associate editor Bob Price, a longtime chronicler of the crisis, the current posture represents what many on the right have demanded for years: a federal government finally willing to secure the border, enforce existing law, and put American safety ahead of progressive immigration experiments.
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