According to the preliminary data obtained by CBS News, in January U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded approximately 8,450 apprehensions of illegal immigrants who had entered the U.S. at points outside of designated entry points across the border. For context, during the highest spike of illegal immigration during the Biden-Harris administration, over 8,000 illegal immigrants were arrested in a single day per CBP statistics.
Rapid Response 47, the Official Rapid Response X account for the Trump White House confirmed the figures comparing the approximate 8,000 in February 2025 to the 300,000 total apprehensions recorded in December 2023, the highest ever recorded.
CBS reported that the February figure if it isn’t adjusted with new data would represent the lowest record of monthly apprehensions since 2000, the last period with publicly available data. It also represents the lowest level in February since 2017, when 11,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended.~300K illegals in December 2023.
Although monthly data pre-2000 is not available, the last time the nation averaged around 8,000 apprehensions per month was in 1968.~300K illegals in December 2023.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 3, 2025
~8K illegals in February 2025.
What a difference a new President makes. pic.twitter.com/YOvcSKHBLf
In an analysis by NewsNation, an El Paso-based Border Patrol agent told NewsNation correspondent Ali Bradley, “This is what we signed up for. This is the oath that we took to protect the nation and secure the southern border. We’re finally able to do that.”
The outlet reported that the total number of daily encounters at the border has dropped to approximately 300 per day on average across all nine sectors of the southern border representing what officials said is a manageable level.
Speaking with the New York Post, Mark Krikorian, the executive director at the Center for Immigration Studies, said the border crossings are the lowest seen “in almost a lifetime.”
“If you kind of break down the numbers, divide them by 365, we haven’t had numbers this low since the 1960s. So we’re talking 60-year lows if it’s sustained, obviously,” he said.
