Biden border restrictions bring sharp drop in illegal crossings
Homeland Security officials see a 40 percent drop in the three weeks since the new rules were announced.
By Nick Miroff
Updated June 26, 2024 at 3:49 p.m. EDT|Published June 26, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2024/06/26/border-crossings-drop-biden-closures/McALLEN, Tex. — The number of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border illegally has dropped more than 40 percent in the three weeks since President Biden announced broad restrictions on asylum claims, administration officials said Wednesday.
U.S. agents have taken fewer than 2,400 migrants into custody per day over the past week, down from more than 3,800 at the beginning of June, according to the latest Department of Homeland Security data. That is the lowest level of illegal crossings since Biden took office, DHS said.
The shift was evident Tuesday in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, which has been one of the border’s busiest migration corridors for the past decade. Along areas of the border where migrant families have crossed in large groups to surrender to U.S. authorities and seek protection, Border Patrol agents pursued a handful of adult men trying to evade capture. Agents’ radios were mostly quiet.
