It’s hard to believe that Donald Trump has only been president again for three weeks as of today. He’s done so much, so fast, that it’s making one’s head spin, and nowhere is the new administration making itself known more than on our southern border. President Trump’s border policies are now, only three weeks on, already having the desired effects. Border crossings are down, and not just a little; they have fallen off a cliff. And on Monday, we learned that “migrant” caravans of people determined to cross illegally into the United States are turning around and going home.
It’s working.
It’s the Trump turnaround.
The White House has launched a near-total crackdown on migrants at the border, not even bothering to question whether they are seeking asylum, leading droves to just throw in the towel, officials and sources say.
The migrants are halting in their tracks and returning south “due to increased border security” after President Trump ended the Biden administration’s risky “catch and release” program, deployed additional troops to the border and commenced a mass deportation effort across the nation, Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks said on X.
There’s an old saying that I will paraphrase as “Bad news travels around the world before good news gets its shoes on,” and in this case, it’s obvious that this good news for the United States seems to have sprouted wings, changed to bad news and traveled to Latin America. At least, these people see it as bad news, as they were clearly planning to enter the United States illegally, as so many have in the last four years.
At least, they did, up until three weeks ago.
Authorities in Honduras last week discovered a group of 26 migrants from Venezuela and Cuba “traveling south back to Nicaragua” and another group of 23 others from Honduras, Venezuela, Panama and El Salvador “turning back from Mexico,” according to Banks.
“These individuals cited the heavy security posture along the U.S.-Mexico border and Mexico’s containment efforts as key reasons for reversing course,” Banks wrote.
“Families in these groups made a life-saving decision, avoiding the dangers of cartel-controlled territory, where extortion and violence are rampant,” the former Texas border czar said.
“Our enforcement efforts are working.”
They are working. Any effort, of course, would have been a good effort after the previous administration made no effort; the gates were flung open to all and sundry, and plenty of American families paid the price for the Biden administration’s indifference. But that’s already turning around — what a difference three weeks can make!
Here’s what I don’t understand, though: Note that the article here says (correctly) that these people make a life-changing decision, “…avoiding the dangers of cartel-controlled territory.” These areas through which these people were cartel-controlled in the Biden years, too, and people came on anyway, knowing that if they could reach the border, they would be allowed in, no questions asked. Many of them paid the cartels to bring them through. So what changed?
They aren’t getting in so easily anymore. That’s what has changed.
The number of migrant encounters at the Texas border Sunday was 303 — compared to the roughly 8,000 on a typical day in December under the Biden administration.
As for the few allowed to continue into the US, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed last week that just 461 of the migrants encountered at the southern border in the first two weeks of the new administration were allowed to stay, or about 6% of the total interacting with US enforcement agents.
Now, those are much more reasonable numbers. There are, of course, people who have legitimate reasons to flee wherever they came from, but those people don’t turn around and go home when they learn that the Estados Unidos has shifted border enforcement from “Neutral” to “Afterburner.”
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Here’s the thing: This sudden reversal puts the lie to many, probably most, of the carefully practiced claims of asylum that so many illegal border-crossers pop up with. Were they really in fear for their safety, for their lives, for their families, they wouldn’t be turning around. They would come forward, and as our border czar Tom “The Hammer” Homan has said, present themselves at a designated border crossing and make their claim. They aren’t — they are going back home, which speaks volumes. People don’t return to a place where their lives and safety are threatened.
I love it when a plan comes together.
