“The door is closed,” said a would-be migrant to the US. Yorman Briceno, who was anticipating applying for asylum in the United States, has found his plans stalled as he waits at a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, near the border crossing at El Paso, Texas. The Trump administration has not only quashed illegal immigration but has put a chill on legal immigration as well. 

“There’s no more hope for entering legally as long as Donald Trump is there,” Briceno told The Wall Street Journal, “and anyone telling you otherwise is lying.” Border crossings have hit their lowest level since the 1960s as President Donald Trump enacts his promises to shut down illegal immigration.

“We’ve noticed a huge reduction in flows,” Inspector Eduardo Esparza said. Across the border in Juarez, the Mexican government has erected tent cities to accommodate those expelled from the US by the Trump administration. Ahead of the 2024 election, migrants surged across the border, hoping to make it in before a potential Trump presidency.

The Trump administration is also trying to conduct mass deportations of illegal immigrants. This includes gang members who are being sent to the El Salvadoran prison CECOT. 53 percent of voters are in favor of Trump’s plans for mass deportation and border security. 

Under the Biden administration, over 2 million people per year crossed into the United States, spurred on by his policies to admit every unaccompanied minor, allow those seeking asylum to wait in the US, and expanding the temporary protected status program as well as creating a program just to bring in more people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti. At its height, Biden’s border crossings were up to 250,000 per month. 

Those crossers were arrested and then released into the US to await their court date. The US currently has a backlog of some 2 million asylum cases. As the Biden administration sought reelection, it tried to curb illegal immigration, cutting the number of border crossers per month to 48,000 in December.

By March, under President Donald Trump, the crossings dropped to 7,000. That number is still falling. Trump’s efforts to shut down the border include militarizing the strip of land on the US side of the border, requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, and other measures. The Trump administration has also urged illegal immigrants in the US to self-deport.

Trump has also worked with Mexico to curb illegal immigration into the US, and last year, an agreement was reached with Panama for that nation to deport those seeking to make the journey through the dangerous Darien Gap.