Homeland Security Reports 16 Straight Months of Zero Border Releases

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says that it has released zero illegal immigrants at the U.S.–Mexico border for the past 16 consecutive months.

The department said on Wednesday that the decline in illegal border crossings and arrests are at “levels not seen in over three decades” and that apprehensions are down 94 percent compared to the Biden administration.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended 5 percent fewer people—8,870—along the southwest border in August when compared with July’s figures.

Border Patrol posted 10,939, or 3 percent fewer, apprehensions nationwide in August, compared with July’s total, according to the DHS in a news release.

DHS added that Border Patrol released zero illegal immigrants last month, compared with 10,186 illegal immigrants released at the southwestern border by the agency under the Biden administration in August 2024.

“Sixteen straight months of zero releases at the border proves that President Trump’s policies are working,” said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in a statement. “Catch and release is over, consequences are back, and illegal crossings have fallen to historic lows.”

Meanwhile, drug seizures at the border increased, with fiscal year drug seizures 61 percent higher than during the previous four years’ average, according to the DHS, which added that CBP increased its cocaine, fentanyl, and precursor chemical seizures in August.

Early in his second term, President Donald Trump issued multiple executive orders addressing the U.S.–Mexico border, including declaring a national emergency there. Other orders he issued include the reimposition of the Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly known as the “remain in Mexico” policy, ending the catch-and-release policy, ending the use of the CBP One app for scheduling port-of-entry appointments, and others.

Border wall construction, a key component of Trump’s first successful presidential campaign in 2016, is also underway along some areas in the southwestern United States.

Last month, the Trump administration announced it had started construction of a section of border wall in southern Arizona, which CBP described as one of “one of the most dangerous smuggling and trafficking corridors on the Southwest border.” It came after a federal judge allowed the government to move forward with building the wall section earlier that month.

The project, located in a desert area of the Tohono O’odham Nation reservation, will close a section “that has facilitated decades of drug loads, migrant deaths, and cartel activity,” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said in a statement late last month.

The DHS announcement comes as the White House on Thursday said it was withdrawing its nomination of Lance Schroyer to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

It’s not clear why Schroyer, a former Oklahoma state trooper who worked as a senior adviser to Mullin, was withdrawn by the White House. A request for comment to the White House was not returned Thursday.

In a post on Truth Social earlier this year, Trump praised Schroyer’s law enforcement work and said he has experience removing illegal immigrants from U.S. streets.

Trump, during his successful run for reelection in 2024, campaigned on conducting the “largest deportation operation in American history” along with stricter enforcement of both illegal and legal immigration.