Is Trump good at keeping the border secure?
Executive summary
The available reporting shows that the Trump administration’s enforcement-heavy approach coincided with dramatic declines in detected crossings and official “encounters,” which DHS and CBP characterize as historic lows and frame as evidence of a secure border [1] [2]. However, those figures come amid aggressive policy changes, expanded enforcement measures, curtailed legal pathways, contested human-rights impacts, and limited independent data transparency, meaning “secure” depends on which metrics and values are prioritized [3] [4].
1. Record lows in encounters: clear metrics that support the claim
Federal agencies and aligned analysts cite steep drops in Border Patrol and CBP encounters—monthly and daily records described by DHS as the lowest in history and by CBP as consecutive months of “zero releases”—and Republican congressional offices have highlighted plummeting Southwest border apprehensions as evidence of success [1] [2] [5]. Think tanks and advocacy outlets also report historic monthly lows, noting totals for some months well below previous records going back to 1999 [6].
2. Policy toolbox: enforcement, walls, “smart” tech, and expulsions
The administration reinstalled hardline measures—rebuilding and extending barriers, awarding multibillion-dollar wall and “smart wall” contracts, deploying troops and temporary barrier systems, and reinstating expedited expulsions and tougher asylum-screening practices—which officials credit with deterring flows and dismantling smuggling networks [7] [8] [9]. White House and DHS messaging present those actions as the nucleus of “the most secure border ever” [10] [3].
3. Outcomes beyond raw encounter counts: drugs, removals, and interior enforcement
Officials assert sizeable reductions in fentanyl trafficking and large numbers of removals and voluntary departures under Trump, tying these outcomes to border security gains and major investments from new legislation [9] [11]. Migration Policy Institute reporting documents sweeping changes in interior enforcement and deportations that extend the impact beyond the line itself, altering who remains in the country [4].
4. Human costs, legal friction, and use-of-force concerns complicate the picture
Independent outlets chronicle rising violence tied to enforcement actions and an uptick in shootings by ICE and Border Patrol that critics say raise accountability and civil‑liberties questions, complicating claims of unalloyed “success” [12]. BBC and Migration Policy reporting recall past policies—family separations, Title 42 expulsions—and warn that rapid shifts in policy produce humanitarian and legal problems even as they reduce crossings [13] [4].
5. Narratives, incentives, and limits to verification
Much of the evidence for “security” comes from DHS, CBP, the White House, and Republican committees that have political incentives to frame declines as triumphs; independent analysts note the administration’s tighter control over data releases and enforcement practices, which makes external verification and long-term comparisons harder [1] [5] [4]. Wikipedia and other aggregators summarize both the administration’s claims and critics’ concerns but caution that limited transparency clouds full assessment [11].
6. Bottom line: effective at reducing detected flows, ambiguous as an overall judgment
By proximate operational metrics—encounters, apprehensions, reported drug seizures, and removal numbers—the Trump administration has been effective at reducing detected unauthorized entries and projecting control at the border, which supports the claim that it is “good at keeping the border secure” in the narrow sense promoted by DHS and allied sources [1] [2] [9]. Yet that conclusion is qualified: it depends on whether one accepts those metrics as the sole definition of security, how one weighs humanitarian and legal tradeoffs, and how much credence is given to agency-released data versus independent oversight, all of which remain contested [12] [13] [4].