Apprehensions at the southern border with Mexico have continued to fall, after reaching a record low in February, down 95% on the same month in 2024.
Customs and Border Protection officials reported that border encounters fell from 8,327 in February to 7,180 in March, a further 13% decrease.
“The month of March recorded the lowest southwest border crossings in history, marking a pivotal achievement in our nation’s border security efforts,” CBP said in an official statement.
“This milestone demonstrates that operational control is becoming a reality—which seemed impossible just a few months ago under the Biden administration—as enforcement measures continue to yield significant results.”
Acting Commissioner Pete Flores hailed the figures and warned migrants thinking of attempting to cross the border not to come.
“Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, the administration has taken bold, decisive action to restore control at the border. Border Patrol agents are empowered like never before to shut down unlawful entry and protect American lives,” Flores said.
“The message is clear: the border is closed to illegal crossings, and for those still willing to test our resolve, know this—you will be prosecuted, and you will be deported.”
The figures for March 2025 are a stunning contrast with those for March 2024. Whereas 7,180 border encounters were recorded in March 2025, the figure was 137, 743 in March 2024.
The effects of President Trump’s border policies were immediate. After signing ten executive orders touching immigration on his first day in office, encounters at the southern border nearly halved during his first full month in office.
The Trump administration is continuing to ramp up efforts to deport millions of illegal aliens in the country, including reassigning large numbers of federal workers at agencies like the ATF to work on immigration.
At the end of last month, Reuters reported, “As U.S. President Donald Trump pledges to deport ‘millions and millions’ of ‘criminal aliens,’ thousands of federal law enforcement officials from multiple agencies are being enlisted to take on new work as immigration enforcers.”
“I do not recall ever seeing this wide a spectrum of federal government resources all being turned toward immigration enforcement,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former Homeland Security official who spoke with Reuters.
Although the specific number of federal workers being redirected to immigration is not fully clear, Reuters notes that the effort is reminiscent of the “aftermath of the 2001 attacks, when Congress created the Department of Homeland Security that pulled together 169,000 federal employees from other agencies and refocused the FBI on battling terrorism.”
According to one ATF official, around 80% of the organization’s 2,500 agents have been ordered to take on immigration-related tasks. At least a quarter of DEA agents are also working on immigration.
So far, Trump’s mass-deportation program has made notable gains, while also facing challenges.
Although the number of migrants crossing the southern border is now at a record low and many of the most dangerous criminals have been apprehended and deported, securing adequate funding has proven an early difficulty.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is facing a serious funding shortfall of $2 billion.
According to Axios, ICE has warned Congress it faces a massive black hole in its budget that could compromise its ability to carry out Trump’s flagship immigration policy.
Although Congress will send an additional $500 million in the stop-gap spending bill that just passed the House, that money would still fall well short of providing the funds ICE needs to continue working at its current pace through September.
Current plans for ICE expansion include the hiring of hundreds more stuff, the doubling of detention space to accommodate 100,000 people and increasing the number of detention flights.
The spending plan now before Congress is “not going to be sufficient to be able to cover the entire need for what they’re covering” at ICE, said Sen. James Lankford
“Just the bed space alone becomes very significant. And to just be able to detain people for a couple of days while they’re processing, and then to be able to move out flights… is exceptionally expensive.”
It may be possible to divert money to ICE from other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, such as FEMA and the Coast Guard, but this could only be a temporary measure.