BORDER BRIEF: Record-Low March Border Encounters Reveal President Trump’s Success, Democrat Hypocrisy

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the House Committee on Homeland Security released its newest "Border Brief " factsheet, highlighting the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data for March, which revealed a 94% drop in Southwest border apprehensions and an 88% drop in nationwide border encounters compared to March 2024. Read more in the Daily Signal via Virginia Allen.

In less than three months, President Trump has restored law and order to our nation's borders, removed criminal illegal aliens from our communities, and helped ensure the safety of the American people by empowering Department of Homeland Security (DHS) law enforcement to do their jobs. In doing so, President Trump disproved Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Alejandro Mayorkas' argument that there was nothing they could do to fix the border crisis that their own policies created.

For four years, dangerous criminal illegal aliens and gang members took advantage of the Biden-Harris administration's lawless open-borders policies, inflicting damage that cannot fully be undone. Just last week, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, an illegal alien gotaway from El Salvador, was found guilty of the murder of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five. As of February, the number of known gotaways has plunged more than 90% since the Trump administration began. President Trump's efforts to remove individuals like this from our communities will help ensure other American families never have to experience a tragedy like this. In remarks from the White House last Thursday, Rachel's mother Patty called out Democrat hypocrisy, saying of Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who traveled last week to El Salvador to visit a deported MS-13 gang member, "To have a senator from Maryland, who didn't even--or barely--acknowledged my daughter and the brutal death that she endured--leaving her five children without a mother, and now a grandbaby without a grandmother--so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that is not even an American citizen."

In the first 50 days of the Trump administration, Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) made 32,809 enforcement arrests, including 1,155 criminal gang members and 39 known or suspected terrorists. This is roughly equal to all of Fiscal Year 2024 under President Biden. In addition, since the Trump administration began, ICE has arrested 394 members of Tren De Aragua (TdA). The inadmissible aliens responsible for the brutal assault and murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray are reportedly linked to TdA.

Meanwhile, Homeland Republicans worked last month to support the Trump administration's law-and-order mission by holding a subcommittee hearing, chaired by Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS), to examine how Biden and Harris' open-borders policies sparked their border crisis--in an effort to ensure policymakers prevent such abuse from ever happening again. Additionally, the Committee advanced legislation from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), which requires DHS to publish the number of Special Interest Aliens who cross our borders, as well as those who crossed under the Biden-Harris administration.

Key Facts:

• CBP recorded just 29,065 < /a>encounters nationwide in March, including 11,017 at the Southwest border.
• U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) apprehensions between ports of entry at the Southwest border in March (7,181) decreased nearly 94% compared to one year prior (137,743) and 95% compared to March 2023 (163,672).
• USBP averaged the lowest daily nationwide apprehensions in history at approximately 264 per day in March--94% lower than the daily average in March 2024 (4,488).
• Encounters of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) at the Southwest border dropped 97% last month compared to March 2021.
• CBP encounters of inadmissible aliens at the Northern border dropped by 72% last month compared to March 2024 and 71% compared to March 2023.
• As of February, the number of known gotaways has plunged more than 90% since the Trump administration began.

###