Immigration enforcement was a core element of President Donald Trump’s successful 2024 presidential campaign, including pledges to retake control of the nation’s borders, left open by former President Joe Biden and his administration, and to conduct a mass deportation operation. Immigration was a crucial issue for voters, often ranking a close second behind inflation and cost of living. During Biden’s White House tenure, more than 10 million illegal immigrants flooded across the border and were dispersed into the American heartland, wreaking havoc on small towns and red state cities that had never before had to deal with a sudden influx of foreigners.

Since returning to office, Trump and his administration have secured the southern border. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Friday that zero illegal immigrants have been released into the U.S. over the past year, while encounters with illegal immigrants at the southern border have decreased drastically, due to increased enforcement efforts. “The days of catch and release are over. We are enforcing the nation’s laws and sending illegal aliens back to their home countries,” Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin boasted, referring to the Biden administration’s policy of permitting illegal immigrants encountered at the border to enter the U.S. Daily apprehensions at the border have fallen 95% since Biden’s reign, indicating significantly fewer would-be-illegal immigrants attempting to even cross the border, much less being released into the country.

Just days before, however, Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary, Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas, attempted to reframe the Biden administration’s catastrophic mismanagement of border security, faulting a “broken immigration system” for the most significant immigration crisis in American history. Mayorkas told Politico that immigration policy set a “low bar” for entry into the U.S. for those claiming “credible fear” of persecution and that the Biden administration should have introduced “tougher” border security measures sooner than it did, in 2024.

What Mayorkas did not tell Politico is that the Biden administration essentially inherited a secure border from the first Trump administration and intentionally changed immigration enforcement policy to usher millions of illegal immigrants into the U.S. During the last year of Trump’s first term in the White House, U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) recorded 405,036 total encounters at the border, while Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded another 241,786 encounters at ports of entry, for a total of 646,822 encounters.

Most of those encountered were processed for expedited removal (deportation at the border or port of entry), particularly under Title 42, a public health measure invoked due to COVID-19, while some (chiefly minors and those with family already resident in the U.S.) were permitted into the U.S. and held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers until, in the case of minors, their parents or other family members could be located, or, in the case of adults, they had an appointment with an immigration judge.

Many of the Trump policies, which were responsible for decreased encounters at the southern border and precious few releases into the U.S. (even then, releases were often from USBP or CBP custody into ICE custody), were quickly revoked by Biden — and Mayorkas. In 2018, the first Trump administration vastly expanded the practice of “metering,” which required asylum claimants to wait in line at ports of entry to be processed and remanded into federal custody, effectively capping the number of daily asylum claims that the U.S. would process.

Asylum processing was suspended almost entirely in 2020, due to COVID-19. Only 10 months into his presidency, Biden rescinded the “metering” policy, resulting in a dramatic expansion of asylum claims. Under Mayorkas, DHS also introduced the CBP One app, allowing illegal immigrants to use cell phones to schedule appointments for processing at U.S. ports of entry before being released into the U.S. while supposedly awaiting immigration court appointments.

The Trump administration also upheld a “zero tolerance” policy, whereby DHS would refer all illegal immigration cases to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for prosecution. Biden terminated that policy. The Trump administration implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), often nicknamed the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required asylum claimants from Spanish-speaking countries to await adjudication of their asylum claims in Mexico, rather than being released into the U.S. In June of 2021, Mayorkas terminated MPP. Under Trump, all illegal immigrants could be processed for expedited removal — again, that’s deportation typically conducted at a port of entry, or within 14 days of entry and within 100 miles of the border, without requiring an order of final removal from an immigration judge. The Trump policy allowed for the expedited removal of all illegal immigrants within two years of entry, irrespective of their location within the U.S. Although that policy was put on hold by federal courts for much of Trump’s first term, the Biden administration nevertheless rescinded it almost immediately after ascending to power.

In executive order 13769, Trump placed a ban on accepting refugees or travelers from seven Middle Eastern countries and significantly reduced the number of refugees that the U.S. would accept. A subsequent executive order expanded the travel ban to include 11 countries. On his first day in the White House, Biden reversed this policy. While Trump repeatedly lowered the number of refugees permitted into the U.S., reaching a low of 15,000 for fiscal year 2020, Biden raised the refugee ceiling to 125,000 annually, higher than former President Barack Obama’s cap of 117,000. Trump’s Prompt Asylum Case Review (PACR) and Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP) streamlined the asylum review process to identify asylum claimants ineligible for asylum under U.S. law, ultimately deporting thousands. Biden ordered Mayorkas to terminate both programs.

Biden’s predecessor and former boss, Obama, had instituted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), shielding illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children from deportation and, in most cases, offering them tuition assistance and work authorization. The program was expanded in 2014 to include Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA), which shielded the illegal immigrant parents of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents (LPRs) from deportation and extended work authorization to them. Over the course of his first year in office, Trump terminated DAPA and halted new DACA applications and renewal applications in a bid to bring the program to an end. Biden ordered Mayorkas to “preserve” DACA and Mayorkas attempted to codify DACA in the federal register. Ultimately, federal courts ruled that DACA was illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), despite Biden’s and Mayorkas’s efforts.

Trump also moved to terminate temporary protected status (TPS) for a host of foreign nationals. Biden and Mayorkas not only renewed TPS for those foreign nationals but greatly expanded the program, which the second Trump administration is still fighting in court to terminate.

Predictably, under the permissive rule of Biden and Mayorkas, border encounters surged, quickly reaching record highs. At its highest point, in 2019, the Trump administration’s CBP saw 1,148,024 illegal immigrants encountered at the border, almost all of whom were turned away. Within the first year of the Biden administration, CBP recorded nearly two million encounters at the border, which quickly spiraled to 2,766,582 in fiscal year 2022, 3,201,144 in fiscal year 2023, and 2,901,142 in fiscal year 2024, Biden’s last year in office.

While the Trump administration had turned away nearly all of the illegal immigrants encountered by CBP, Biden and Mayorkas welcomed nearly all of them into the U.S. via a “parole” program, which effectively allowed illegal immigrants apprehended by USBP and CBP to roam freely in the U.S. with the understanding that they would present themselves at a later date for their scheduled immigration court hearings. Very few of them ever showed up for their appointments. Between October of 2021 and October of 2024, immigration courts issued a record number of in absentia removal orders — a 45% increase over the combined total of in absentia removal orders issued over the previous seven years. Additionally, CBP recorded more than two million known “gotaways,” illegal immigrants who were not halted at the border, during Mayorkas’s management of DHS. The exact number of “gotaways” is unknown.

What was often framed as the “crisis” at America’s border under Biden was not a matter of a “broken immigration system,” nor of federal law setting a “low bar” for admitting asylum claimants, as Mayorkas claimed. It was, instead, a matter of Biden and Mayorkas deliberately dismantling the border security system that they inherited from Trump, intentionally reversing the policies that secured America’s border in the first place, and actively lowering the bar for admitting not just asylum claimants but illegal immigrants of all stripes. Under Biden and Mayorkas, immigration fraud ran rampant, and the asylum processing backlog more than tripled, “refugee” screening was diluted nearly to the point of nonexistence, and murderers and rapists were released into the U.S. to terrorize American citizens.

In 2022, 20-year-old Kayla Marie Hamilton was strangled to death by a Salvadoran national. In 2023, mother-of-five Rachel Morin was accosted by a Salvadoran national who beat Morin to death against a tunnel wall before raping her. In February of 2024, nursing student Laken Riley was assaulted by a Venezuelan national; when Riley fought back against the illegal immigrant trying to rape her, he beat her to death with a rock. Just a few months later, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was raped and strangled by two Venezuelan nationals who had been granted “humanitarian protection” by Biden and Mayorkas. Mother-of-five Camillia Williams was murdered and then raped by a Honduran national. An 18-year-old girl was raped by a Mexican national who had been deported under Trump but allowed to re-enter the U.S. under Biden and Mayorkas. A 14-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a Mexican national. An 83-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran was shoved onto the New York City subway tracks and killed by a four-time deportee brought into the U.S. under Biden and Mayorkas. A Haitian national who was granted TPS by Biden and Mayorkas used a hammer to kill a 51-year-old gas station clerk. A Honduran national kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl. A Venezuelan teenager murdered a co-worker with a sledgehammer. A Guatemalan national raped a five-year-old girl so viciously that she needed surgery. A Mexican national raped and assaulted two teenage girls, one of whom was handicapped. Another Mexican national raped an 11-year-old girl at knifepoint while holding her 10-year-old sister hostage. A Guatemalan national lost his temper and killed his three-month-old daughter via “blunt force trauma.”

According to the White House, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and other sources, all of these violent offenders — and many others besides — were welcomed, paroled, released, and permitted into the U.S. by Biden and Mayorkas.

Mayorkas was not hamstrung by a “broken immigration system.” He broke the immigration system.