After only one month back in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump has already made significant strides in stemming the illegal immigration crisis at the nation’s southern border. According to a report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the number of illegal immigrants encountered at the southern border has dropped to a years-long low. Over the course of January, U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) encountered 29,116 illegal immigrants attempting to enter the country. Encounters in January 2024 exceeded 124,000, representing a more than 75% drop in attempted illegal border crossings since last year.

Furthermore, just since Trump took office, from January 21 to January 31, 2025, there was an 85% decrease in apprehensions at the southern border from the same period in 2024. In the first 11 days of Trump’s return to office, CBP’s Office of Field Operations (OFO) encountered 93% fewer inadmissible immigrants at ports of entry than it did during the 11 days prior to Trump’s return.

Under the Biden administration, nearly six million illegal immigrants were apprehended at the southern border, from October 2021 to December 2024. Just during January 2021, when Joe Biden took office, over 75,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended. That number quickly rose over the succeeding months, reaching a high of nearly 250,000 apprehensions in December 2023. Many of those illegal immigrants were released or “paroled” into the U.S. after being caught. According to CBP’s report for January, that practice has been reversed. “CBP is no longer catching and releasing illegal aliens into the U.S. CBP is leveraging legal authorities to take every reasonable step to ensure illegal aliens are placed in detention and expediently removed from the country,” the report stated. “In simple terms, illegal aliens are being arrested, detained and then rapidly removed.”

Acting CBP Commissioner Pete Flores declared in a statement, “The men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection are aggressively implementing the President’s Executive Orders to secure our borders. These actions have already resulted in dramatic improvements in border security.” He continued, “The reduction in illegal aliens attempting to make entry into the U.S., compounded by a significant increase in repatriations, means that more officers and agents are now able to conduct the enforcement duties that make our border more secure and our country safer.”

According to a report from the New York Post, federal agents — whether CBP, U.S. military, deputized Texas National Guardsmen, or others — now significantly outnumber illegal immigrants attempting to cross. NYP recounted the story of a 23-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who was halted by “six burly federal agents who said he’d be sent back to Mexico the same day.” The report continued, “The migrant, a 23-year-old Mexican national named Jovani, burst into tears and proclaimed his support for President Trump.” The illegal immigrant said that he supports Trump “because he’s someone who seems like he doesn’t like those who commit crimes,” and even endorsed mass deportations, even though he cried when threatened with deportation.

Deportations are, of course, a key aspect of the Trump administration’s efforts to secure the southern border. According to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, the U.S. has already deported 14,470 illegal immigrants to Mexico just since January 20. Of the deportees, 11,379 were Mexican nationals and 3,091 were non-Mexican foreigners. U.S. authorities are also deporting illegal immigrants to other countries, including Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Panama. In some cases, deportees do not hail from the countries they are deported to, but those countries instead agree to accept the deported foreigners until they can make their way back to their countries of origin. In one instance, illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam were deported to Panama, where they have been moved to a detention facility in the Darien jungle ahead of being repatriated to their countries of origin.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem recently announced an ad campaign warning foreigners not to attempt to enter the country illegally and encouraging illegal immigrants to “self-deport,” rather than be “hunted down and deported” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “If you are considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it. Let me be clear: if you come to our country and you break our laws, we will hunt you down. Criminals are not welcome in the United States,” Noem declared in the ad, which is airing across the U.S. and internationally. She continued, “If you try to enter illegally, you will be caught, you will be removed, and you will never return. Follow the law and you’ll find opportunity. If you break it, you’ll find consequences.”

In a social media post accompanying the ad, Noem warned “illegal aliens to leave our country NOW or face deportation with the inability to return to the US. This serves as a strong warning to criminal illegal aliens to not come to America.” She promised, “If they do, they will be hunted down and deported.” Coincidentally, numerous world leaders have called on their citizens living illegally in the U.S. to “self-deport.” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a statement late last month, “I ask undocumented Colombians in the U.S. to immediately leave their jobs in that country and return to Colombia as soon as possible.” Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness also called on “undocumented” Jamaicans in the U.S. to “come back home.” He said, “Jamaica is your homeland. You are not homeless. You are not stateless.”

According to a report from CNN, the Trump administration is preparing to re-implement Title 42, a public health measure the president used during his first term to rapidly expel illegal immigrants encountered at the border. Speechwriter and policy advisor Stephen Miller, now serving as Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and National Security Advisor, initially devised the plan for the first Trump administration to use Title 42 at the border and has been a strong advocate for renewing the practice, discontinued under the Biden administration.

Labeling illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border as potential public health threats who may spread communicable diseases, Title 42 allowed the first Trump administration to expedite the deportation process and, in many cases, bypass immigration courts. Before Trump’s return to office, Miller explained that the administration may cite diseases like tuberculosis or influenza in invoking Title 42 — or may just declare “mass migration” itself to be “a public health threat.”

In addition to significantly bolstering border security and ratcheting up deportation measures, the Trump administration has also taken steps to cripple the drug cartels responsible for drug and human trafficking across the southern border. The Washington Stand reported last week that the U.S. State Department was preparing to classify the Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Cártel del Noreste, La Familia Michoacana, Cárteles Unidos, and the international gangs MS-13 and Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations. On Wednesday, the State Department made the classification official in a move intended to financially cripple the cartels and gangs.

That classification comes as the cartels escalate violence against U.S. agents, especially along the southern border. As The Washington Stand previously reported, certain cartels have decided to use drones loaded with explosives against USBP and U.S. military personnel stationed at the border. However, according to CBP, lasers have also been used to target U.S. aircraft carrying out border patrol missions. “When laser beams are aimed at any piloted aircraft, whether military or commercial, what might seem like a tiny beam on the ground can blind aircrew, potentially causing a midair collision or other incident,” CBP noted, reporting that six border patrol aircraft have been struck by lasers within the past several months. It has not been confirmed whether or not cartel members have been responsible for the use of lasers.

Following Trump’s efforts to incentivize the Mexican government to tackle criminal cartels within its own country’s borders, Mexican authorities have made a series of “minor seizures and cartel arrests,” according to Breitbart News. Law enforcement authorities have been targeting cartel foot soldiers, who Breitbart News says are “hyped up” as violent criminals, while failing to pursue cartel leadership. Although Mexican law enforcement did recently seize about $40 million of methamphetamines in cartel territory, Breitbart reported that Trump administration officials have been displeased with the country’s inaction on targeting cartel leaders, alleging corruption in some cases, especially against Public Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch, who has taken control of all federal law enforcement in Mexico.