President Joe Biden asserted that border crossings have decreased significantly compared to any period during the Trump administration in an interview on Tuesday. However, a thorough examination of border data reveals that this claim is inaccurate.
In a conversation with Speedy Mormon, a host from the youth culture news outlet Complex, Biden highlighted the positive outcomes of an executive order he implemented last month to address the issue of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. During the interview, which took place on Friday and was broadcast on Tuesday, the Democratic president stated, “Guess what? The number of people attempting to enter the country is lower than it has ever been during [Donald Trump’s] presidency.”
Although Border Patrol encounters with migrants between ports of entry have decreased to the lowest levels since Biden assumed office, they have not dropped below the figures recorded during Trump’s presidency, as per data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
In June, there were 83,536 Border Patrol encounters with migrants between ports of entry, which serves as the standard measure for unlawful border crossings, according to CBP data from the U.S.-Mexico border. Biden’s executive order, issued on June 4, significantly restricts the entry of asylum seekers when unlawful border crossings surpass a daily threshold.
The Biden administration touted the results of the executive order in a Monday press release, saying “Border Patrol encounters between ports of entry were 29% lower than in May 2024 and were the lowest monthly total for the Border Patrol along the southwest border since January 2021 as well as lower than the number of encounters between ports of entry in June 2019, the last comparable year prior to the pandemic.”
The accuracy of the Monday statement is confirmed by CBP data, showing that there were fewer than 76,000 illegal border crossings in January 2021, the last month of Trump’s presidency. Since then, there has not been a single month with less than 83,000 unlawful border crossings. Apart from a few months in fiscal year 2019, nearly every month under the Trump administration had fewer encounters between ports of entry than June 2024, as per CBP data.
It remains unclear whether Biden’s statement implied that current border numbers are the lowest since Trump’s departure or if he deliberately suggested they are lower than at any point during Trump’s term. The White House has not yet responded to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Despite the decrease in unlawful border crossings following the executive order, the latest border data for June indicates that the administration continues to permit foreign nationals to enter the country at ports of entry at a similar rate. CBP’s new border data reveals that there were more than 117,000 migrant encounters at official ports of entry in June. These figures are consistent with the approximately 119,000 encounters reported in May and the record 121,696 encounters in August 2023.
