The Department of Homeland Security has now gone 13 consecutive months without releasing a single illegal immigrant encountered at the border, a streak DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin says has produced "the most secure border in American history." The figures, first reported by the Daily Caller, mark a sharp reversal from the Biden years, when, by Republican Homeland Security Committee estimates, roughly 10.3 million illegal immigrants entered the country between 2021 and 2024.
Zero. That is the number of catch-and-release encounters at the U.S. border for over a year running. Not a reduced number. Not a modest improvement. Zero.
The contrast with the prior administration could hardly be starker. In April 2024 alone, under President Biden, more than 68,000 illegal immigrants were released after being apprehended at the southern border. Under the current enforcement posture, that number has flatlined, and stayed there for more than a year, as Newsmax reported when the streak hit its twelfth month in May.
Southwest border apprehensions in May 2026 fell 94 percent from the monthly average under Biden. Total border apprehensions during fiscal year 2026 through May are 26 percent lower than the average for any single month from 1992 through 2024, a baseline that spans more than three decades of enforcement data.
Put another way: the Trump administration is now seeing fewer illegal crossings in an entire month than the Biden administration saw in a single hour at its peak. The New York Post noted that average daily border apprehensions in April stood at 298, compared to 336 per hour in December 2023 under Biden.
The first quarter of fiscal year 2026 recorded only 91,603 total nationwide encounters and apprehensions, the lowest ever reported at the start of a fiscal year, Just the News reported. Southwest border apprehensions in that quarter dropped 95 percent compared to the Biden-era average. In December 2025, just 209 illegal border crossers were apprehended per day along the entire southwest border.
These are not cherry-picked snapshots. They represent a sustained, months-long collapse in illegal crossings that tracks directly with the administration's enforcement-first approach, an approach Congress reinforced when President Trump signed a nearly $70 billion immigration enforcement bill into law after a protracted funding fight.
DHS Secretary Mullin did not hold back in his statement on the milestone:
"Thirteen straight months of ZERO releases at the border. Under President Donald Trump's leadership, we are delivering the most secure border in American history. The days of catch and release are over. We are enforcing the nation's laws and quickly sending illegal aliens back to their home countries, ensuring the safety and sovereignty of our nation."
CBP Commissioner Rodney S. Scott struck a similar note in a press release, stating that the agency's "robust enforcement policies are working" and that CBP is "delivering unprecedented results in border security, drug interdiction, and trade enforcement."
Fox News reported that Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks resigned citing the border being at its "most secure" state, a striking departure from the crisis-management posture that defined the agency under Biden.
The enforcement gains extend well beyond apprehension numbers. CBP seized nearly 800 pounds of fentanyl at the border in May 2026 alone. Over the last four months, agents captured an average of 37,033 pounds of marijuana per month, 61 percent higher than the average during Biden's fiscal year 2024.
Total drug seizures by CBP ran 56 percent higher this fiscal year than the same period in 2024. Fox News separately reported that 463 pounds of fentanyl were seized in April, with drug seizures up 60 percent from April 2024.
The administration is also hitting smuggling networks where they operate. The DHS social media account posted on June 19 about a June 8 traffic stop in Maverick County, where Border Patrol assisted the local sheriff's office. A Mexican national, Miguel Francisco Hernandez-Jimenez, was stopped while allegedly smuggling individuals concealed inside an HVAC system in his truck bed.
That kind of enforcement, local and federal agencies working together to dismantle smuggling operations, reflects a broader posture. The Trump administration has pursued criminal organizations aggressively, including a military strike in Venezuela that killed the founder of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The White House reports that more than 600,000 illegal immigrants have been deported during Trump's second term. An additional 1.9 million have self-deported, a figure that, if accurate, suggests the deterrence effect of credible enforcement reaches far beyond the border itself.
The self-deportation number is worth pausing on. When people who entered the country illegally begin leaving voluntarily because they believe the rules will actually be enforced, that is a signal the policy environment has fundamentally changed. It is also a rebuke to the years of progressive insistence that enforcement was either impossible or immoral.
The Biden-era numbers tell the other side of the story. Republican Homeland Security Committee estimates put the total number of illegal immigrants who entered the country from 2021 to 2024 at roughly 10.3 million. That figure, compiled from a September 2024 fact sheet, represents what happens when enforcement is treated as optional and catch-and-release becomes the default operating procedure.
Border security is not only about people and drugs. CBP seized two million counterfeit goods worth over $400 million in May 2026 alone. The agency also prevented nearly 250 shipments worth over $44 million that same month.
These numbers rarely make the front page, but they matter to American businesses and consumers who bear the cost of counterfeiting and illicit trade. When border enforcement weakens, every kind of illegal commerce accelerates, and the people who pay the price are workers, small businesses, and taxpayers.
The Trump administration has made clear it views border security as inseparable from broader law-and-order priorities. The Vice President's recent fraud referral on Minnesota's governor and attorney general to the Justice Department reflects the same instinct: that accountability and enforcement are not partisan positions but basic obligations of government.
The 94 percent drop in monthly apprehensions is not just a statistic. It is a measure of how badly the prior administration failed at one of the federal government's most basic responsibilities.
Under Biden, the southwest border experienced monthly apprehension levels that dwarfed anything in the modern record. The December 2023 peak saw crossings at a rate of 336 per hour. The policy infrastructure that produced those numbers, mass releases, strained processing facilities, overwhelmed border communities, did not appear by accident. It was the predictable result of deliberate policy choices to weaken enforcement, narrow deportation priorities, and signal to the world that the border was effectively open.
The Trump administration reversed those choices. The results followed. That sequence, enforce the law, and illegal crossings drop, is not complicated. It is the lesson that progressive immigration advocates have spent years trying to obscure.
The administration has paired border enforcement with other measures aimed at restoring constitutional order and legislative leverage, including conditioning FISA reauthorization on passage of the SAVE America Act.
The 13-month streak is impressive on its face, but several questions remain. DHS has not publicly detailed the methodology it uses to define and count a "release" for the purposes of the zero-release claim. The precise start date of the streak is not specified in the available reporting. And the 1.9 million self-deportation figure cited by the White House lacks a publicly described methodology.
These are fair questions, and the administration would serve itself well by answering them transparently. But the broad direction of the data, confirmed across multiple agencies, multiple months, and multiple independent reports, is not in serious dispute. Border crossings have collapsed. Catch-and-release has ended. Drug seizures are up. Deportations are proceeding.
For four years, Americans were told that the border crisis was too complex to solve, that enforcement was cruel, and that the sheer volume of illegal crossings was beyond any president's control. Thirteen months of zeroes on the catch-and-release ledger say otherwise.
