U.S. border crossings fell sharply in the first quarter of the fiscal year, with apprehensions at the southern border down about 95% compared with levels under the previous administration, according to data released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
CBP recorded record-low numbers of illegal border crossings and apprehensions in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, marking the lowest start to a fiscal year in the agency’s history, Just the News reported.
Department of Homeland Security officials and border enforcement leaders attributed the decline to enhanced enforcement measures implemented since early 2025, including tightened asylum rules and increased patrol activity along the U.S.–Mexico border.
The data showed that total encounters and apprehensions nationwide were significantly below historical averages from the recent prior period, with December’s figures among the lowest ever recorded since President Trump reversed years of Biden administration ‘open border’ policies.
Officials have suggested that the sustained downturn reflects both operational changes at the border and the effects of policy shifts initiated since the start of the Trump administration.
Border security trends have drawn national attention in recent years, with migrant encounters previously reaching record levels before declining in 2024 and continuing to fall into 2025.
Trump is continuing to implement stricter immigration policies, declaring in November that he plans to “permanently halt” immigration from all developing nations and reassess green-card holders who do not contribute positively to the country.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
The term “Third World,” in its modern usage, generally refers to economically disadvantaged or developing nations with lower rankings on the Human Development Index (HDI). The phrase originally emerged during the Cold War to classify countries that were not aligned with either the United States and its Western allies (“First World”) or the Soviet bloc (“Second World”).
Over time, its meaning has shifted toward describing countries facing economic instability, widespread poverty, or lower overall living standards. In recent years, many institutions and policymakers have moved toward alternatives such as “developing countries” or “low- and lower-middle-income countries,” citing concerns about accuracy and neutrality, Just the News reported at the time.
National security has been used as the basis for near-total immigration shutdowns in the United States as far back as the early 20th century. During the Great Depression and World War II, roughly from 1930 to 1945, strict enforcement of the “likely to become a public charge” provision and wartime security protocols drove legal immigration to extremely low levels, even without a formal blanket ban. Comparable slowdowns occurred between 1918 and 1920 amid the Spanish flu pandemic and post–World War I instability, and again in the months following the September 11, 2001, attacks, when consular visa processing was largely halted for security reviews.
Although laws such as the 1921 Emergency Quota Act and the 1924 Immigration Act significantly limited immigration through numerical caps, the 2020 measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic remain the only modern instance of a formal, broad suspension that effectively paused nearly all legal immigration channels.
Earlier national security crackdowns also included mass deportation efforts. In 1919, the Department of Justice deported more than 500 people—including anarchist Emma Goldman—during a series of operations later known as the Palmer Raids.
Nearly 10,000 people across 70 cities were arrested amid concerns about radicalism and European immigration, actions directed by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Just the News noted.
