For the tenth straight month, U.S. Border Patrol did not release a single illegal immigrant into the interior of the United States. The Department of Homeland Security announced the milestone on March 20, alongside February data showing the highest single month of drug seizures since October 2021.
The numbers tell a story that would have been unthinkable three years ago. Nationwide encounters in February dropped to 26,963, down 88% from the monthly average under the Biden administration. Southwest border apprehensions fell to 6,603, a figure DHS says is 92% below the monthly average over the past three decades and 97% below the Biden-era peak of December 2023.
That December 2023 peak saw 336 apprehensions per hour. In February 2026, the daily average along the southwest border was 236. Border Patrol now processes fewer people in an entire day than it once handled in a single hour under Biden.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem framed the results in blunt terms, as reported in the CBP media release:
"Ten straight months of ZERO illegal aliens released at the border. President Trump promised to secure the Border, and that is a promise we delivered. We have the most secure border in American history. Our borders are CLOSED to lawbreakers."
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott echoed that assessment, calling the streak "a clear reflection of the enforcement-first posture restoring integrity to our nation's borders." Scott pointed to both the sustained low crossing numbers and the agency's broader mission of facilitating lawful trade while confronting evolving threats to national and economic security.
The administration has now logged 13 consecutive months of fewer than 9,000 southwest border apprehensions. Daily apprehensions are down 95% from the previous administration. DHS described the sustained decline as evidence that "robust enforcement policies" are working, language that reads as a direct rebuke to critics who spent years insisting the border crisis was beyond any president's control.
February's enforcement picture extended well beyond immigration. CBP recorded 79,609 pounds in drug seizures nationwide, an 84% jump from January 2026 and the agency's best single month since October 2021.
Every major drug category climbed. Marijuana seizures surged 129% over January. Fentanyl seizures rose 67%. Methamphetamine was up 46%, cocaine 39%, and heroin 10%. DHS cast those numbers as proof that CBP agents are intercepting narcotics before they reach American communities, not that more drugs are flowing, but that enforcement is catching more of what cartels attempt to move.
Fox News reported on the same data, noting the sharp contrast between the current enforcement posture and the Biden years, when mass releases into the interior were routine and border agents were overwhelmed by sheer volume.
That contrast matters. When agents aren't processing and releasing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants each month, they can focus on the cartels pushing poison across the line.
CBP's fiscal year encounter total through February stood at 153,155, a number DHS says is 40% lower than the month of February 2024 alone. Read that again: five months of encounters under the current administration amount to less than a single month under Biden.
Just The News detailed the month-over-month trajectory, noting nationwide apprehensions fell from 34,626 in January to 26,963 in February, continuing a steady downward slide. Southwest border apprehensions of 6,603 represented a 97% drop from the December 2023 peak of 341,073.
The trend line didn't start yesterday. Newsmax reported in early February that Border Patrol recorded 237,538 migrant encounters at the Mexico border in all of fiscal year 2025, the lowest annual total since 1970. Since February 2025, monthly encounters at the southwestern border have stayed below 10,000, according to Pew Research Center analysis cited in that report.
Critics on the left spent the Biden years arguing that migration patterns were driven by global forces no American president could meaningfully influence. Root causes. Climate change. Economic desperation. The solution, they insisted, was more legal pathways, more processing capacity, more compassion, not enforcement.
The numbers obliterate that argument.
National Review argued early in Trump's return that the immediate plunge in crossings exposed Biden-era claims as dishonest. Border encounters fell from roughly 300,000 in December 2023 to 8,300 in February 2025, a 96% collapse, averaging just under 300 a day, which the Border Patrol chief called "the lowest month in recorded history." National Review credited both the deterrent effect of a president willing to enforce the law and the rapid expulsion of those caught crossing illegally.
That deterrent effect, sometimes called the "Trump effect", proved that political will matters more than any root-cause theory. When illegal immigrants know they will be detained and removed rather than released with a court date years away, fewer attempt the crossing. The incentive structure changed. The results followed.
The pattern mirrors the broader story of this administration's willingness to use executive authority decisively, a posture visible across multiple fronts, from Trump-backed candidates sweeping primaries to Senate Republicans holding firm on presidential authority.
The February data also highlighted CBP's role beyond immigration and drug interdiction. The agency processed $262 billion in imports and identified $26 billion in duties for collection. Those are staggering sums that reflect the scale of commerce flowing through American ports of entry every month.
CBP stopped 266 shipments valued at more than $11 million for potential forced labor violations. It seized 443 shipments containing counterfeit goods valued at over $580 million. On the agriculture side, agents issued 6,533 emergency action notifications for restricted or prohibited plant and animal products, conducted 89,688 positive passenger inspections, and handed out 536 civil penalties for undeclared prohibited agriculture items.
These numbers rarely make headlines, but they represent the daily grind of more than 67,000 CBP personnel protecting the American economy from fraud, exploitation, and contamination. When the border is under control, those officers can do their full job, not just triage a humanitarian crisis manufactured by policy failure.
The scale of the reversal invites a simple question: if enforcement works this well, why did the previous administration refuse to try it?
Under Biden, the southwest border saw monthly apprehension peaks above 300,000. Agents processed and released illegal immigrants into the interior by the hundreds of thousands. Cities across the country buckled under the weight of migrants arriving with no resources and no legal status. The administration's answer was always the same: Congress needed to act, the system was broken, enforcement alone couldn't work.
Ten months of zero releases say otherwise. So does a 95% drop in daily apprehensions. So does the lowest annual crossing total since 1970.
The system wasn't broken. The people running it chose not to enforce the law. When new leadership chose differently, the results came fast, a dynamic visible in other arenas where this administration has moved with speed and conviction.
DHS and CBP framed February's numbers as validation of their enforcement-first approach. Commissioner Scott acknowledged that "threats to our national and economic security continue to evolve," but pledged the agency's resolve would keep pace. The drug seizure spike suggests cartels haven't stopped trying. They've just started losing more.
The political question is whether these results survive contact with the next election cycle. Democrats spent years building an immigration apparatus designed to maximize entry and minimize enforcement. Dismantling that apparatus took executive action, not legislation. What one president builds by executive order, another can tear down.
That reality should focus the minds of every lawmaker who claims to care about border security. The proof of concept is in. Enforcement works. The question is whether Congress will codify what this administration has demonstrated, or leave the border's fate to the next occupant of the Oval Office, as it has for a political class that too often avoids accountability.
Ten months of zero releases. A 97% drop from Biden's worst month. The lowest crossing numbers in half a century. The border didn't secure itself. Somebody had to decide to do it.
