SALT LAKE CITY — The latest stats related to U.S.-Mexico border activity show a continued dip in the number of enforcement encounters involving U.S. border security officials, a measure of illegal and illicit crossings into the country.
"The men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection are aggressively implementing the president's executive orders to secure our borders. These actions have already resulted in dramatic improvements in border security," Pete Flores, the acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said in a statement in releasing the figures on Tuesday.
Since a huge spike in enforcement encounters at the southwest U.S. border in late 2023 during President Joe Biden's tenure, the monthly count has steadily fallen. The encounter figures for January — 61,465 — are the lowest since at least late 2021, and while Biden served for the first two-thirds of the month, President Donald Trump, inaugurated on Jan. 20, served the last portion of January.
By comparison, the figure for December 2023, which sparked a wave of visits to the U.S.-Mexico border by Republican leaders and widespread outcries for tougher border security, reached 370,883.
Encounters include apprehensions of immigrants who entered illegally or were deemed to be inadmissible.
The statement from Customs and Border Protection referenced changes in border enforcement practices since Trump took office and the resulting impact. Apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border, a gauge of the number of people trying to cross illegally into the country, dropped 85% from Jan. 21-31 compared to the same period in 2024.
"CBP, with support from the Department of Defense, has dramatically increased active patrols of our international borders," reads the agency's statement, reflecting the high priority Trump has placed on border security. Moreover, rather than "catching and releasing" immigrants here illegally, they "are being arrested, detained and then rapidly removed."
In related news, the Denver office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reported that a series of operations on Sunday by Salt Lake drug enforcement and U.S. Department of Homeland Security officers led to the arrests of 13 immigrants in the country illegally. In a post to X, the Denver DEA office said four of the 13 are members of Tren de Aragua, a criminal gang based in Venezuela.
"All subjects are in ICE/ERO custody for deportation processing," reads the post. ICE is the acronym for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while ERO, or Enforcement and Removal Operations, is the ICE arm that handles actual immigrant detention operations.
ICE officials didn't immediately respond to a query seeking more details of the Utah operation.
Among other changes in dealings with immigrants, Customs and Border Protection halted use of a telephone app that some immigrants had used to gain entry into the country, the CBP One app. The agency also ended "categorical parole programs" for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans that had allowed them to seek entry into the United States based on circumstances in their countries. The end result of the varied efforts, according to Flores, is more rigorous border security.
"The reduction in illegal aliens attempting to make entry into the U.S., compounded by a significant increase in repatriations, means that more officers and agents are now able to conduct the enforcement duties that make our border more secure and our country safer," he said.
