DHS Innovated, Leveraged New Partnerships, and Invested in the Workforce to Strengthen Border Security
During the Biden-Harris Administration, under the leadership of Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has taken unprecedented steps that have made the Southwest Border more secure than it was four years ago despite historic levels of global migration. We have done this by investing in our workforce and building new capabilities that expanded and strengthened our ability to secure our borders and enforce immigration law – furthering our national security and public safety. Over the last four years, DHS has deepened and broadened our work with partners across the federal government, and with counterparts in countries throughout the hemisphere and around the world. At the same time, DHS leadership focused on the workforce, responded to their needs, and invested in helping them do their jobs while promoting their well-being.
Lowest Level of Border Encounters Since August 2020
Since the June 4 Presidential Proclamation Securing the Border, utilizing the President’s 212(f) authority, and the accompanying DHS-DOJ Rule, there has been a continued, meaningful decrease in unlawful border crossings – including a more than 60% decrease in encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border from May 2024 to December 2024. November and December encounters between ports of entry were at their lowest level since August 2020, and recent monthly encounter levels have been lower than the monthly average in 2019. In the first half of January 2025, Border Patrol encounters are nearly 50 percent lower than at the same point in January 2021. The 7-day daily average of encounters currently sits at 1,150 and has been below 1,500 for 21 consecutive days.
- Through expanded enforcement and increased consequences for unlawful entry, we have tripled the percentage of noncitizens processed for Expedited Removal to record levels and significantly increased the number of migrants removed from the United States.
- In fiscal year 2024, DHS completed over 685,000 removals and returns, more than any prior fiscal year since 2010. That includes more removals to countries other than Mexico than in any prior fiscal year. DHS has also reduced the time it takes to remove individuals with final orders of removal who do not establish a legal basis to remain in the United States by more than half from its historical average. Additionally, the estimated number of migrant gotaways – people who crossed the border without encountering CBP – decreased approximately 60% from FY 2023 to FY 2024.
- At the same time, we have decreased the number of individuals released by the U.S. Border Patrol pending immigration court proceedings by 89%.
- On the northern border, CBP’s expanded enforcement efforts in response to changing migration trends has yielded a reduction in encounters between ports of entry of more than 85% from June to December.
This executive action has led to significant results; however, our nation’s immigration system requires Congressional action to provide needed resources and additional authorities. When Congress failed to pass the bipartisan border security agreement negotiated in the U.S. Senate, which would have provided the critical personnel and funding needed to further secure our Southern border, this Administration took decisive and effective action.
Building on a Sustained Effort
The executive actions further securing the border under the President’s 212(f) authorities detailed above built on a sustained effort by the Administration to rebuild immigration agencies that had been starved of resources and exercise our full authorities to enforce the law.
In addition to enhancing enforcement under our immigration authorities, DHS has devoted significant time and resources, together with the FBI and other partners, to strengthen our screening and vetting processes such as by making classified vetting available to Border Patrol Agents in the field for real-time vetting of certain nationals for the first time ever. We have nearly doubled the number of countries that participate in biometric sharing and screening platforms and implemented enhanced vetting for worldwide refugee processing, affirmative asylum processing, and visas worldwide. As a result of these efforts, more individuals than ever before who are seeking to travel to the United States or arriving at our borders are subject to vetting against classified information in addition to rigorous law enforcement screening and vetting.
Throughout the last four years, this Administration has carried out a whole-of-government effort, increasing the number of Agents and Officers on the southwest border to over 24,000, adding thousands of additional support personnel to return Border Patrol Agents to front-line work, and securing the first significant increase of Border Patrol Agents in more than a decade.
DHS has also bolstered technology along the border, including the deployment of autonomous surveillance towers, and cutting-edge Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) technology at our ports of entry to better detect narcotics, including fentanyl, and other contraband.
Mobilizing International Partnerships and Bolstering Cooperation
Sustaining a low level of border encounters requires curtailing irregular migration well before it reaches our border. DHS continues to work with international partners throughout the hemisphere to manage migration in a coordinated way and stem extracontinental irregular migration through increased use of transit visas and passenger vetting. We have also expanded the use of enforcement measures against entities and individuals that profit from irregular migration, including sanctions on transportation companies that facilitate it. This Administration has also mobilized unprecedented actions from partner nations to expand lawful pathways, address the root causes of irregular migration, and reduce the flows of migrants through the Darién and Central America and Mexico.
- DHS has coordinated with the Government of Mexico on continued enforcement efforts, to include its independent decision to accept certain non-Mexicans being returned or removed to Mexico from the United States, as well as enhanced efforts to disrupt human smuggling, trafficking, and criminal networks, and continuing to promote lawful pathways to address irregular migration. Engagements since December 2023 have resulted in increased enforcement efforts from the Government of Mexico and a significant drop in encounters.
- We have also partnered with the Department of State and foreign countries to impose transit visa requirements for certain nationalities and sanction charter airlines that knowingly bring unauthorized migrants to the Western hemisphere. These companies prey on vulnerable migrants by operating services designed primarily to facilitate irregular migration to the United States.
- DHS has also worked with the Department of State to support the Government of Panama’s repatriation of migrants who enter Panama irregularly through U.S Government funding and technical assistance. This has resulted in more than 35 international repatriation flights and contributed to a decline in monthly migration through the Darien Gap of more than 90% since the high point in 2023.
- Imposed visa restrictions on more than 250 members of the Nicaraguan government and other sanctions on 3 Nicaraguan entities in retaliation for repressive actions and a failure to stem migrant smuggling through Nicaragua.
- DHS has led the largest crackdown on transnational criminal organizations in the last decade. Our frontline personnel and law enforcement partners, including in allied nations, have carried out the disruption of thousands of human smuggling operations, such as raiding smuggler stash houses, impounding tractor trailers that are used to smuggle migrants, and confiscating smugglers’ information technology.
- Through collaborations like Joint Task Force Alpha and targeted operations such as Operation Plaza Spike and other unprecedented and high-impact efforts, we have worked with Mexico and partners in Central America and across the hemisphere, to disrupt and dismantle smuggling organizations at every level. More than 18,000 smugglers throughout the region have been arrested and thousands here in the United States have been prosecuted under federal law.
Expanded Lawful Pathways and Processes
This Administration’s efforts have kept more than a million migrants from being exploited at the hands of smugglers through expanded lawful pathways and processes. Through our continued efforts, DHS has:
- In partnership with the Department of State, launched the Safe Mobility Initiative in June 2023 to help refugees, vulnerable migrants, and other displaced persons in the Americas learn about local integration options in the host country and seek referrals to lawful pathways to the United States and other countries so that people do not need to take the dangerous journey to the Southwest border. More than 10,000 refugees have arrived in the United States through this initiative thus far.
- Worked with our interagency partners and private sector to expand access to H-2 nonimmigrant visa programs and issue nearly 450,000 H-2 visas, the highest ever, to ensure individuals seeking economic opportunities are able to seek these visas instead of taking an irregular journey to U.S. borders while at the same time addressing labor shortages facing U.S. businesses.
- Expanded capacity at ports of entry by utilizing the CBP One mobile application to allow noncitizens to schedule an appointment to present for inspection in an orderly fashion and enabling rigorous screening and vetting.
- Implemented new family reunification parole processes, which has allowed for thousands of nationals of Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Ecuador whose family members are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents and who are the beneficiaries of an approved family-based petition, to travel to the United States. That was in addition to updating and modernizing the Cuban and Haitian family reunification parole (FRP) processes, providing access to additional individuals.
Cracking Down on Transnational Criminal Organizations
Additionally, the work of DHS frontline personnel, through collaborations like Joint Task Force Alpha with the Department of Justice, has taken the fight to Transnational Criminal Organizations -- disrupting and dismantling them at every level.
At the same time, the work of our component agencies at CBP and HSI with targeted operations such as Operation Plaza Spike and other unprecedented high-impact efforts, has disrupted the fentanyl supply chain and prevented deadly opioids from reaching our communities. In the last three years DHS stopped more fentanyl than in the prior five years combined.
Congressional Action is Needed
DHS has built out a model that shows it is possible to dramatically decrease illegal immigration at our southern border, provide humanitarian relief for those who truly need it, and limit the reach of human smuggling networks, all while upholding our core national values. Our Administration’s strategy has been tough, humane, legal, and effective – and the progress we have made is substantive. Now Congress must act and provide the resources and authorities needed.