Illegal border crossings hit record low second month in row

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

For the second full month in a row since President Donald Trump’s been in office, illegal border crossings reached record lows in March, reversing Biden administration illegal crossings, which were the highest in recorded U.S. history.

In March, 29,065 illegal border crossers were encountered and apprehended nationwide, a fraction of what they were under the Biden administration. In March 2024, they totaled 246,505 nationwide; in March 2023, 259,471; in March 2022, 250,404, excluding those who evaded capture, according to CBP data.

The biggest decrease was at the southwest border, where Border Patrol agents reported the lowest daily average apprehensions in recorded history of 264 a day in March. That’s 20% lower than the 330 daily nationwide average apprehensions in February and 94% lower than 4,488 per day average from March 2024, CBP said.

“U.S. Border Patrol’s apprehensions along the southwest border for the entire month of March 2025 were lower than the first two days of March 2024,” Acting CBP Commissioner Pete Flores said.

“For the second month in a row, you have broken the record in the history of the nation for the lowest number of encounters at the border. You have said that America's laws matter and that they'll be enforced and we're hard at work now to get people to go back home that are here illegally,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told the president at a cabinet meeting before the numbers were released.

“The Alien Registration Act has been in place long enough now that those individuals that are here illegally, if they haven't registered, then they can be charged criminally and they can face fines up to $1,000 a day and face deportation if they don't go home, and they'll never get the chance to come back to America,” she said, referring to notices DHS has sent to foreign nationals released into the U.S. through a range of Biden-era parole programs.

She said that DHS was continuing to encourage illegal foreign nationals to use the CBP Home App to register to self deport and was “working on the resources and funding to buy them a plane ticket to send them home.”

She also said that after having discussions with officials in El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico and others that these countries were considering setting up programs to support the return of their citizens – with the understanding that they could come back to the U.S.

“So, when they get there, they'll have housing and food assistance and so making sure that these folks have the opportunity to go home so that they can get the chance to come back to America is important,” she said.

Thousands of illegal foreign nationals have already self-deported, Noem said, but there were still 21 million people “that need to go home because they're here breaking our laws.”

Another security measure being implemented will impact all U.S. citizens, she said. “The American people need to know that Real ID will be required to travel on May 7th,” she said, referring to a Bush-era program. She said she sent notifications to governors to communicate that at the state level, saying, of Americans, “I don't want anybody to get delayed and not be able to travel when they get to an airport.”

Congress passed the Real ID Act in 2005, signed into law by former President George W. Bush, to require extensive documentation in order to obtain a state-issued driver’s license or identification card. Real IDs will be required to board domestic airline flights and access federal government facilities and nuclear power plants. Requiring a Real ID was touted 20 year ago after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a way “to prevent terrorists from abusing the asylum laws of the United States, to unify terrorism-related grounds for inadmissibility and removal, and to ensure expeditious construction of the San Diego border fence,” according to the bill language.

Requiring Real ID “will also help us bring integrity back to all of our IDs and how they're used for issuing drivers licenses,” Noem said. “Governors know how I feel about making sure their driver’s licensing system has integrity because a lot of people use their driver's license to vote, and the backbone of our country … is election integrity.”

In response, Trump said, “we’re going to work with people [who illegally entered the country] so that if they go out in a nice way and go back to their country, we're going to work with them right from the beginning point, trying to get them back in.”

Doing so gives them an incentive, he said, otherwise they’ll “never be allowed” back into the U.S. “once a certain period of time goes, by which is probably going to be 60 day.”

He also said that many U.S. farmers and businesses were knowingly using illegal immigrant labor. Instead of encouraging them to hire Americans, or comply with federal immigration and labor laws, Trump said his administration would work with them.

“We're also going to work with farmers, that if they have strong recommendations for their farms for certain people, we're gonna let them stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a legal process,” he said. “We have to take care of our farmers and hotels, and you know, various places where … they need the people.

“We're going to be working … very carefully on that so a farmer who comes in with a letter concerning certain people saying they're great, they're working hard, we're gonna slow it down a little bit for them, and then we're going to ultimately bring them back. They'll go out, they're going to come back as legal workers.”

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