President-elect Donald Trump will face a bigger challenge getting control of the U.S.-Mexico border come his second term than he did at the start of his first term, when he also took office after successfully running on a promise to clamp down on illegal immigration.
Trump took office in January 2017 following the Obama administration’s two terms. In former President Barack Obama’s final full month in office, more than 58,000 people were encountered by federal law enforcement at the southern border, including those who illegally entered between ports of entry.
Under President Joe Biden, the border crisis hit record levels of illegal immigration but has tapered off significantly in the final months of his presidency.
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Daniel Di Martino, a legal immigrant from Venezuela who analyzes immigration trends as a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank in New York, said Trump “absolutely” faces a more difficult battle this time around.
“Absolutely, Trump does face a greater border challenge today than in 2017 by any measure,” Di Martino wrote in a message. “There are more illegal immigrants in the country, coming every month, and from a more diverse and farther away set of countries than when he started his first term.”
When Trump first took office, he implemented various deterrent factors, such as a Remain in Mexico policy and family separations, and diverted taxpayer money for border wall construction when Mexico won’t pay for its construction. Numbers initially dropped to below 20,000 encounters per month as cartels backed off.
But numbers later spiked to over 100,000 per month in 2019 as the Trump agenda was held up by lawsuits from liberal organizations. Border crossings then dipped again under Title 42 health restrictions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Throughout most of Biden’s tenure, illegal immigrants arrested by federal police ranged from 150,000 to 250,000 per month.
A precipitous decline in illegal crossings began last June when Biden took executive action and implemented a new rule to turn away people at the border rather than release thousands who were crossing daily into the interior of the country to await court dates years down the road.
A review of data by U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed that although illegal immigration arrests are lower than in 2017 and when Biden took office in 2021, the situation presents new challenges because of how the Biden administration steered immigrants to fly into the country and schedule appointments at ports of entry rather than enter illegally.
Walking back the flights and appointments, as Trump has promised to do come Jan. 20, could mean tens of thousands more people attempting to enter illegally every month.
For context, in November 2024, about 94,000 people were encountered at the southern border. Roughly 46,000 immigrants of that 94,000 figure were arrested illegally entering and an additional 48,000 people were admitted into the country at the ports of entry through a Biden-era initiative through the CBP One app.
Those 48,000 might have chosen to enter the country illegally, but because of the app, they went through a formal process set up by the Biden administration.
That is one reason that Trump may have a harder job to do this time around than in 2017, Di Martino said, because he will feel the hit of ending Biden’s lawful pathways.
“Ending legal crossings at the ports of entry would definitely lead more people to try to cross elsewhere to claim asylum,” said Di Martino. “Whether that means more of less net illegal immigration depends on how effectively Trump can stop them from being eligible for credible fear and deporting them, that will partly depend on resources from Congress.”
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council in Washington, has warned that Border Patrol could see an influx of immigrants crossing between the ports if CBP One is done away with.
“Ending the CBP One process at ports of entry may encourage some migrants to try their luck crossing illegally instead, rather than wait for months in Mexico for a shot at entering legally,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote in a message in November 2024.
Among Trump’s plethora of immigration plans to control the border, he intends to do away with the CBP One app, which allows immigrants to apply for admission through the parole process.
“As President I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America. We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration),” Trump wrote in a post to X on Sept. 15 during his successful campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Critics have argued that parole was intended to be used on a case-by-case basis, while Biden has used the CBP One app to admit more than half a million parolees. Parolees may remain in the U.S. for two years once admitted.
The Biden-Harris administration added two functions to the app starting in late 2022. First, the CBP One app permits immigrants from four countries, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, to apply to fly on a commercial flight into the U.S. at their own expense and receive a work permit to remain for two years.
The app’s second function allows immigrants in Mexico to schedule an appointment at a land port of entry on the southern border to meet with U.S. customs officers. Up to 1,450 appointments can be scheduled daily — for a total of more than 43,000 per month. Immigrants who schedule appointments wait months to be seen at one of eight ports of entry used for appointments and are overwhelmingly admitted.
However, Di Martino said Trump has a trick up his sleeve that he would be smart to use to stop the hundreds of thousands of immigrants from countries other than Latin America from traveling to the U.S. annually even if he does end the CBP One app’s immigration functions.
“Trump can easily cut off non-Latin American illegal immigration by pressuring Ecuador to impose visa requirements on other countries so they never reach the southern border through this route,” said Di Martino.
Adam Isacson, a proponent for immigrant rights and director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, said regardless of what Trump does, immigrants will go to the U.S. or other countries to seek help.
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“Nobody on any side of this debate supports the idea of people accessing that protection by crossing the border irregularly — in the desert, over the wall, across the river. That’s chaotic, uncontrolled, and dangerous,” Isacson wrote in a text message.
“People should be able to come to ports of entry and request protection: CBP One was far from perfect, but it was an orderly way to channel this flow of people,” said Isacson, who noted that in November, more immigrants applied to enter the U.S. through the app than by illegally entering. “If that option disappears, it’s a 2,000-mile border: people are still going to come, but in a far less orderly way that makes Border Patrol agents’ job a lot harder.”
