Daily encounters along the southwest border in December were the lowest average since July 2020, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The number of migrants found along the border was 96,000, officials told reporters on Tuesday afternoon.
“It’s a consistent trend we’ve seen since the president’s proclamation went into effect last summer,” he said.
Last summer, President Joe Biden announced a series of executive actions that would have included more than 2,500 encounters at the southern border for seven consecutive days that would have turned away migrants seeking asylum between ports of entry.
The daily average was also lower than in all months of 2019, according to Mayorkas.
Mayorkas told reporters that he is leaving the Biden Administration in a better place than where they found the border.
Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a press conference on January 10, 2025 in Washington, DC.
John Mcdonnell/AP
“Our administrative strategy has been tough, humane, legal and effective,” said Mayorkas. “The border is safer, more secure and more orderly than it was under the previous administration, and the progress we’ve made can continue. Ultimately, however, the only lasting solution is for Congress to reform the legislative system that is so fundamentally broken.”
The monthly gatherings along the southwest border reached new records for the first time in the Biden Administration, prompting Republicans to criticize the administration’s policies.
Mayorkas also denounced the number of deportations, which was the highest since 2014.
“We have listened to our employees and invested heavily in helping them do their jobs again within the financial constraints we are working with,” Mayorkas said. “We achieved the first significant increase in Border Patrol agents in more than a decade. This, with the support of Congress, increased the number of agents and officers in the Southwest Border to more than 24,000, added 1,000 additional support personnel, and searched 1,000,000 law enforcement officers and other officers across the department. some workers”.
A senior Department of Homeland Security official said it was difficult to suggest the administration should have done anything sooner, in part because they were still implementing Title 42, making policy implementation difficult.
Introductory The Trump Administration He has said he may reinstate Title 42 as a way to quickly deport migrants.
