WASHINGTON — The White House stated Friday that illegal border crossings have plummeted since President Donald J. Trump took office, leading to the closure of numerous migrant shelters across the United States.
According to the administration, U.S. Border Patrol agents in the El Paso sector encountered approximately 1,500 illegal immigrants daily two years ago. That number has reportedly dropped to around 80 per day due to new border security policies.
Several shelters have shut down or significantly reduced operations in response. Catholic Charities reported serving “zero to three families” at its McAllen, Texas, shelter and cutting staff in Dallas. A migrant shelter network in El Paso indicated that only one or two of its 20 facilities remain open. In San Diego, a shelter reportedly “has not had a single migrant walk through its doors” since Trump took office and has since closed.
Similar trends were reported in Arizona, New York City, and northern Mexico, where facilities that previously housed thousands of migrants are now nearly empty.
A local news report from Mexico described the decline in illegal crossings as having “decreased enormously.”
The White House attributed these changes to Trump’s border enforcement measures but did not specify which policies directly led to the decline.