The average number of encounters at the U.S. southern border decreased more than 40% in the three weeks since President Joe Biden announced executive action to crack down on illegal crossings, the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday. 

What You Need To Know

  • The average number of encounters at the U.S. southern border decreased more than 40% in the three weeks since President Joe Biden announced executive action to crack down on illegal crossings, the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday 
  • In a press release, the department said Border Patrol’s seven-day encounter average has dipped below 2,400 per day, marking the lowest level since Jan. 2021, Biden’s first month in office 
  • Earlier this month, Biden announced an order barring migrants who cross illegally from seeking asylum, effectively shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry, when the average number of daily encounters reaches 2,500
  • The 2,400 average still sits above the threshold that lifts restrictions on asylum laid out in Biden’s executive action unveiled earlier this month

In a press release, the department said Border Patrol’s seven-day encounter average has dipped below 2,400 per day, marking the lowest level since Jan. 2021, Biden’s first month in office.   

However, the department noted, the 2,400 average still sits above the threshold that lifts restrictions on asylum laid out in Biden’s executive action unveiled earlier this month. The action mandates that the restrictions must stay in effect until two weeks after seven consecutive days of less than 1,500 daily encounters. 

In a highly anticipated move earlier this month, Biden took to the White House East Room, flanked by a select group of border town mayors, governors and members of Congress, to unveil his new border executive action. The order bars migrants who cross illegally from seeking asylum, effectively shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry, when the average number of daily encounters reaches 2,500. 

Daily encounters were already above 2,500 when the order was announced, meaning the new rules applied immediately. 

“Our team did an exceptional job quickly implementing this new policy and we are already seeing the results,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared on Wednesday during a press conference in Tucson, Arizona, where he received an operational briefing from officials on the execution of Biden’s border action. 

Mayorkas noted that in Tucson specifically, encounters have dropped 45% since the executive action. Repatriations of people crossing the border in Tucson, Mayorkas said, increased 150%, leading to an 80% decrease in those placed into “immigration proceedings and our backlogged court system.” 

Overall, the department said more than 24,000 people attempting to illegally cross have been removed and returned to more than 20 difference countries in the three weeks since Biden’s order. 

The aggressive election-year move from Biden came after Republicans in Congress killed a bipartisan border security negotiated over weeks by Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, a Republican, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent. Despite originally requesting legislation on the border be paired with foreign aid, the GOP came out against the bill after former President Donald Trump – Biden’s 2024 rival – criticized it. 

Biden and the White House have sought to put Trump’s role in the legislation’s death front and center as polls show the border and immigration rising in voters’ list of top issues. And Wednesday's 40% decrease announcement comes just one day before the current and former presidents are set to take the stage for an unprecedented debate Thursday night. 

“Because Donald Trump decided that politics was more important than border security, right now congressional Republicans continue to deprive the American people of 1,500 Customs and Border Protection personnel – including Border Patrol Agents, 1,200 Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, and cutting-edge fentanyl detection machines that are needed to make our communities more secure,” White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a memo on Wednesday. 

Republicans criticized Biden's move at the time as a "political stunt." House Speaker Mike Johnson charged that the president and Mayorkas, who his chamber impeached earlier this year, "engineered" a border crisis. (Mayorkas was quickly acquitted by the U.S. Senate.)

But Biden’s border move also angered some further to the left in his party, like Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who called the actions “extremely disappointing." 

Just two weeks after the border action, in a similarly attention-grabbing move, the commander in chief announced a new policy to shield some immigrants without legal status who are married to U.S. citizens and have been in the country for at least 10 years from deportation, also making it easier for them to apply for citizenship.