NBC News reports a historic drop in border crossings to 238,000 in fiscal year 2025, the lowest since 1970, attributing the shift from Biden's 2.2 million record to Trump's National Guard deployment and asylum closures. Specifics include Eagle Pass daily crossings falling from 2,000 to 20 and the end of El Paso migrant housing, while Secretary Sean Duffy halts commercial licenses for non-citizens after California issued 25% illegally. This enforcement reportedly turned majority Latino districts red and restored normalcy, suggesting Trump's law-focused approach resolved the humanitarian crisis blamed on previous administration policies. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Seismic Shift at the Border00:07:43
Tonight, new numbers showing the dramatic change at the border.
We've got the most controlled border we've ever had in the history and in my lifetime in the Border Patrol.
In Eagle Pass, Texas, during the Biden administration, more than 2,000 migrants crossed into the U.S. in a single day.
But now, under President Trump's policies, officers encounter just 20 migrants a day here.
Tonight, DHS touting the lowest number of illegal border crossings since 1970.
And Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks tells us they'll expand the one mile of defensive buoys on the Rio Grande.
We've got about 500 miles identified across the entire Texas border where we're going to place these in the river.
Is this the new wall?
It's defense in depth.
We were here two years ago where migrants used to carry children on their backs to get across this river and cut through this barbed wire to get to the United States.
They would see hundreds, even thousands a day in this very spot.
But today, it's silent.
North and Del Rio, border residents telling us they're thrilled crossings are down.
Yeah, this is nuts because this is NBC reporting this.
That's why they lost the past election.
Yeah.
Just one issue.
Our community back normal.
Border Security, a major factor in two majority Latino districts, Eagle Pass and Del Rio, voting red last November.
Business owner Leo Martinez is a Democrat who voted for Trump, saying his once eight-hour commute to his factories across the border now takes 20 minutes.
Now, if you look at the borders, it's super quiet.
So whatever the current administration done, it's working.
Well, they're enforcing our laws.
Remember when Trump was running for, well, President, well, Joe Biden was president, they kept blaming Trump.
I was like, how the hell is it Trump's fault?
He's not even in office right now.
Yeah, because they were blaming him.
Say, yeah, Trump wants to run on the problem.
Right.
So let's not fix the problem in the House and in the Senate.
Look, such BS.
Yeah, all you have to do is enforce our laws.
They kept saying we need to pass new laws.
The immigration system is broken this country.
No, it's not broken.
You just enforce the laws and everything will work itself out.
What Trump needs to do is go ahead and just drop that hammer and start finding all these businesses, all these employers, a fine each day for each illegal they have working for them.
It knocks all of this out.
Yeah, who would have known it was the Democrats that were broken, not our immigration laws?
His daughter voted for Trump, too.
Do you think what happened here with the surge led more people to vote for Trump?
Yes, 100%.
Latino.
Latino.
Across the border, President Trump's policy blocking asylum claims also having an impact.
Johanna Romero, with her six-month-old son, saying she's desperate, waiting in Mexico since December.
Saying she's fleeing death threats from her baby's father.
I was really afraid.
It was a very strong...
Oh, man.
That's crazy.
All on us the same issue.
I'm running for my ex.
He's trying to take unalive me.
How do you go about it?
How do you go about disproving her?
You can't.
She doesn't even speak English.
Strong threat, she said.
President Trump's policy banning asylum seekers at the border is now being challenged in court.
We think he's...
Why don't you challenge that in court?
Democrats.
Look, even CBS is reporting on this.
Federal data first obtained by CBS News shows that unlawful crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border fell to the lowest annual level in more than 50 years.
50 years.
All it took was a new president.
In fiscal year 2025, Homeland Security Department data shows border patrol agents apprehended nearly 238,000 migrants crossing the southern border illegally.
That's from October 2024 through the end of last month.
And it marks the lowest annual tally since 1970, when 202,000 apprehensions were recorded then.
Also, it marks a significant drop from the 2022 record high of 2.2 million that was under former President Joe Biden.
CBS News immigration and politics were not.
The borders are.
Remember, Kamala's the borders are.
She's going to fix the border.
She didn't even ever go to the border.
Borders are.
Reporter Camilla Montoya-Galvez, who first broke this story, joins us now.
Camilla, thanks so much for being with us tonight to talk about this and give this context.
But first, can you lay out exactly what this data shows you that's happening there at the southern border?
Nancy, this is truly an extraordinary turnaround at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Biden administration has, you know, faced an unprecedented crisis there of humanitarian proportions, seeing.
They created the crisis.
Oh, man.
Millions of people come to the U.S. and try to cross into the country illegally every single year.
In fiscal year 2022, at the peak of that crisis, Border Patrol recorded 2.2 million migrant apprehensions.
That is nearly 10 times the amount that was recorded in fiscal year 2025, which just and you know what's crazy about that?
Those 2.2 million, they don't send them back.
They release them into the country and set up court dates for them.
That was our six years down the road.
Yeah, that's a Biden policy.
Catch and release.
Yeah.
When Trump was in office, prior to Joe Biden taking over the presidency, they would stay in Mexico to their acclaim came forth and they would make a decision whether they can come in or not.
But Biden created this whole debacle that was going on at our southern border.
This ended last week on September 30th.
And the vast majority of the apprehensions, those 238,000 apprehensions in fiscal year 2025 were actually recorded in the past three months or the last three months rather of the outgoing Biden administration.
Under the Trump administration, Border Patrol has recorded fewer than 9,000 apprehensions on a monthly basis.
That is a figure that the Biden administration recorded on multiple days in 24-hour time spans.
So there has been a seismic and dramatic change at the U.S.-Mexico border.
I actually called one of my border contacts, a shelter director in the Texas border city of El Paso.
Last time I saw him in person, Nancy, his shelter network in El Paso was housing hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers.
He tells me that this week, his shelter network is not housing a single migrant.
Wow, not a single one.
How did this all happen?
Can you give us some context on this drop in crossings?
How did it happen?
The Trump effect.
Enforce the immigration laws.
No, we have to enforce the immigration laws.
It's not that.
It's the Trump effect.
The man who got the hostages home, it's the Trump effect.
Yeah, but there wasn't enforcing the laws.
Hey, man, it's the Trump effect.
Biden was enforcing laws, so he said he was.
No, he wasn't.
The only difference is it's Trump.
It's the Trump effect, I'm telling you.
The only man that can fix the southern border is Donald Trump.
It's the only man.
Shut up.
Quit a quick question.
The Trump administration would certainly credit this dramatic drop for illegal crossings in terms of its dramatic crackdown on illegal immigration.
Policies like the deployment of thousands of national troops to the border.
Some parts of the border have been militarized, Nancy.
And the administration has also effectively closed down the American asylum system to people entering the country illegally.
Importantly, it has also virtually ended the practice of releasing migrants into the U.S. interior.
The Trump Effect on Enforcement00:03:28
That has long been viewed as a pull factor that attracts illegal immigration.
And of course, it has gotten Mexico and countries like Panama to really stop people from reaching the U.S. in the first place.
Camilla Montoya Gavez can.
And you know what?
He's still cleaning up what Biden left behind.
They were letting a bunch of asylum seekers can't even speak English.
And they're out here driving trucks.
Look what Fox News does.
Immigration bus caught dozens of illegal drivers, and some of them.
120 illegal migrant truckers busted in the Oklahoma state.
They can't even read English?
What's up?
Questionable licenses.
Oklahoma's governor is standing by for us, but first senior national correspondent William Longess is reporting live in Los Angeles on that.
What are we learning, William?
Well, that's just a spotlight, Sandra.
U.S. roads are inundated with hundreds of thousands of commercial drivers who don't speak English, can't read roadsides, don't sleep, and undercut U.S. driver wages by some 70%.
That's a conclusion by the feds came after this Florida crash in August, prompted a deep dive into actually who's driving America's 18-wheelers.
According to Secretary Sean Duffy, sanctuary states like California, New York, and some red states are giving Biden-era asylum seekers commercial licenses.
The process for issuing these licenses is absolutely 100% broken.
It has become a threat to public safety, and it is a national emergency.
Duffy highlighted crashes across the country.
Yeah, Biden administration, not only did he have our border wide open, but these people are letting into our country, they're getting jobs that he shouldn't have, and they're actually killing people.
Yeah, and undermining the American worker.
They're taking our jobs, taking trucker jobs, doing it for a lot cheaper.
Across the country, like this 17-car pileup in Texas in March, five dead, including an infant.
The driver, an asylum seeker from Eritrea, who spoke Ethiopian, now indicted for manslaughter.
And in New Mexico, this big rig makes no attempt to stop killing one, injuring another.
The driver, according to court records, only spoke Mandarin.
That is nuts.
Our highways are full of what we believe to be hundreds of thousands of improperly licensed commercial truck drivers, a lot of them being illegal immigrants.
Last Friday, Duffy ordered states to stop issuing CDLs to any non-U.S. citizen or lawful resident.
He estimates 190,000 non-domiciled truck drivers should lose their license.
An audit found California issued 25% of its CDLs illegally to immigrants.
Now, in Oklahoma, a highway...
Look at this.
They don't even give them a name, no name given, and they'll give them a license.
That is crazy.
Checkpoint found 20% of truck drivers were illegal immigrants.
Some licenses had no first or middle name.
The vast majority of those people had crossed the southern border into the United States between 2020 and 2024.
And all of them had crossed on the southern border.
So states began issuing non-domiciled CDLs in 2021 when President Biden addressed a dispute over driver shortage.
Duffy says any state that continues to issue those CDLs to foreigners will lose their highway money.
Sandra?
All right, well, you're much higher on that for us.
Illegally Licensed Truck Drivers00:00:54
Thank you.
I don't believe that.
How many millions of people in this country feel there's a driver shortage?
That's totally yeah, all you had to do was enforce immigration laws that's on the books.
And you need the right man that Trump effect.
I mean, that Trump effect goes on beyond.
Yeah, that Trump effect ain't.
That's a Trump effect.
That Trump effect, all he doing is enforcing the laws.
No, man.
That's all he's doing.
No, no, not only is he enforcing laws, but he's a king now.
And he's running this country like he's a king.
Oh, hell, a team truck.
All we needed was a king to fix the southern border.
Oh, you tried to trigger people.
The Democrats didn't come across this video.
That's King Trump.
You tried to trigger people, huh?
Oh, man.
We needed the Trump effect.
He fixed it his first time he was in office, and he even doing a better job his second time in office.