For years, we were told that Congress must pass new legislation in order for the southern border to be secured. But now, 19 months into the second Trump administration, no illegal immigrants have been released into the United States from that frontier for 15 months straight, and an analysis of recent government data shows that the illegal immigrant population has declined by more than two million.
We didn’t need new laws. We just needed a new president.
The scale of the reversal is striking. A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of Census Bureau data recently estimated that the foreign-born population increased by 8.3 million between January 2021 and January 2025, the largest four-year increase CIS could identify in history. CIS estimated that 5.4 million of that increase consisted of illegal immigrants.
CIS’s latest report finds the trend has since reversed. From January 2025 through July 2026, the foreign-born population declined by an estimated 2.9 million, of which CIS estimates 2.3 million were illegal immigrants. This is an unprecedented accomplishment.
The border was made secure not because of any sudden drop in desire around the world to migrate to the United States. It was due solely to policy and law enforcement policies brought in by the new presidential administration.
On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump proclaimed that migrants who were part of an “invasion” would be “restricted from invoking provisions of the [Immigration and Nationality Act] that would permit their continued presence in the United States.” He separately directed DHS to repel, repatriate, or remove migrants covered by the proclamation.
The administration also ordered DHS to maximize detention rather than release migrants while their cases proceeded. Subsequent congressional funding greatly expanded the capacity of that policy, including $45 billion for ICE detentions and $5 billion for CBP facilities and checkpoints.
The results have been dramatic. Customs and Border Protection reported in August that Border Patrol had gone 15 consecutive months without releasing apprehended migrants into the country, while July southwest border apprehensions stood at 9,295, 94% below the Biden-era monthly average.
The administration has simultaneously remade the immigration courts. According to the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, 279 immigration judges were fired or resigned during fiscal 2025 and 2026, about 38% of the bench. Trump has hired 192 new judges, while another 53 temporary judges joined the system.
As the Washington Examiner reported this week, asylum outcomes have shifted sharply, too. In June 2026, immigration judges denied 94% of asylum cases, compared with about 50% in June 2024. Case completions have also risen, exceeding 14,000 in March and June. Denial rates began rising under Biden, and accelerated under Trump.
Interior enforcement is rising as well. ICE arrested 50,925 illegal immigrants in August, surpassing July’s record of 50,208 and June’s 43,900. The August record came under border czar Tom Homan, who took over interior enforcement after Trump grew tired of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s incompetence and theatrics.
THE BLUE STATE CORPORATE EXODUS
The reestablishment of national sovereignty is highly welcome but also fragile. Democrats would quickly dismantle it again if allowed back into power. The Democratic National Committee adopted a resolution last month calling on congressional democrats to draft legislation to “abolish” the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Extreme left-wing candidates such as Darializa Avila Chevalier of the Democratic Socialists of America have gone even further, saying “all deportation is wrong.” That is a denial of sovereignty, which is the same thing as a rejection of America.
The past 19 months show how dramatically the demographic and law-abiding makeup of our country can change through executive action alone. Trump’s administration has sharply reduced border releases, increased removals, and tightened asylum adjudication. Those changes remain vulnerable to reversal because a future administration could change enforcement priorities without any input from Congress. Electing a president or Congress not committed to securing the border would return us to the mass migration chaos of the Biden presidency.