Border Patrol Sees Dramatic Drop in Numbers’ Since Trump

By Editor March 11, 2017 10:30

Border Patrol Sees Dramatic Drop in Numbers’ Since Trump

A week after it reported January apprehension and inadmissible entry statistics that showed a decrease from December, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published its February data on Wednesday, saying that “the numbers show an unprecedented decline in traffic” and also noting that “since President Trump took office on January 20, we have seen a dramatic drop in numbers.”

“From January to February, the flow of illegal border crossings as measured by apprehensions and the prevention of inadmissible persons at our southern border dropped by 40 percent,” CBP said in an updated March 8 online report, listing Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as the report’s author. “The drop in apprehensions shows a marked change in trends. Since the Administration’s implementation of Executive Orders to enforce immigration laws, apprehensions and inadmissible activity is trending toward the lowest monthly total in at least the last five years. This change in the trend line is especially significant because CBP historically sees a 10-20 percent increase in apprehensions of illegal immigrants from January to February. Instead, this year we saw a drop from 31,578 to 18,762 persons – a 40 percent decline.”

“This is encouraging news as in the period from Oct 1, 2016 to the Presidential inauguration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 157,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants – a 35 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, with family units increasing by more than 100 percent,” the CBP post continued. “However, since President Trump took office on January 20, we have seen a dramatic drop in numbers.”

On February 23, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that “since Inauguration Day, illegal crossings have dropped 50 percent” in the Rio Grande sector of the country’s Southwest border. However, even though CBP said that it would present new data on February 24 to confirm Cruz’s claim, it included only December data on that day and then added January data last week. The new February data published on Wednesday would be more in line with what Cruz told CPAC.