Border Patrol officials are reporting a significant drop in encounters with illegal immigrants in the days after President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Several sources from the Department of Homeland Security shared data with Fox News indicating that encounters at the southern border in the first three days of Trump’s presidency are 35 percent lower than those for the final three days of the Biden administration.
There were 1,288 nationwide encounters on Jan. 17. That was followed by 1,266 on Jan. 18 and 1,354 on Jan. 19, a sum of 3,908 encounters.
But on Jan. 20, the day on which Trump took office at noon, there were 1,073 encounters.
The decline continued into Jan. 21, with 736, and it fell to 714 on Jan. 22, a total of 2,523 encounters.
Those figures do not consider encounters at the northern border or through ports of entry.
More data obtained by Ali Bradley, who covers border issues for NewsNation, revealed a similar decline in attempted illegal entries.
The Office of Field Operations, an agency of Customs and Border Protection that runs ports of entry, reported a decrease in encounters as well.
Between Jan. 17 and Jan. 19, the days before the Biden administration concluded, there were 4,940 encounters from the Office of Field Operations, according to Bradley’s sources in the Department of Homeland Security.
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On Jan. 20 and Jan. 21, there were 930.
By the evening of Jan. 22, there were only 45.
Bradley said that was because Trump shuttered the CBP One mobile app minutes after taking office.
The app allowed foreigners to schedule appointments at ports of entry, at which they could claim asylum status and enter the country.
Bradley said roughly one million individuals entered the country through that program.
The Department of Homeland Security sources described the decline as “the Trump effect,” saying that the numbers are “supposed to look like” what they have been in recent days.
Trump signed an executive order entitled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” on his first day in office.
The action said that “it is the policy of the United States to faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens, particularly those aliens who threaten the safety or security of the American people.”
Trump wants the federal government to achieve “the total and efficient enforcement of those laws, including through lawful incentives and detention capabilities,” according to the order.
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