President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Pool via Reuters)
The Pentagon quickly deployed troops and opened up Guantánamo Bay to flights of migrants. The Department of Homeland Security has taken limits off of interior enforcement and expanded the use of expedited removal, while the State Department secured additional cooperation with countries to return migrants.
The administration has launched a massive interior enforcement operation, where daily arrests have regularly hit 1,000+ a day, although officials have indicated they want to see numbers go even higher.
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The administration has pointed to figures showing sharp increases in interior arrests compared to the Biden era and a sharp drop in encounters at the border.
In February, there were just 8,326 southern border encounters, down from 189,913 in February 2024. The administration has so far removed more than 55,000 illegal immigrants from the U.S.
Trump touted those numbers in a speech to Congress on Tuesday night.
Army Maj. Gen. Henry S. Dixon, left, Joint Task Force North commander, discusses southern border operations with Marines near San Ysidro, California, Jan. 28, 2025. (Department of Defense )
"Within hours of taking the oath of office, I declared a national emergency on our southern border and I deployed the U.S. military and Border Patrol to repel the invasion of our country. And what a job they've done. As a result, illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded, ever," he said.
"They heard my words, and they chose not to come."
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He also mocked the claim by Democrats and the Biden administration that legislation was needed to fix the crisis.
"But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president," he said.
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Meanwhile, a Border Patrol source told Fox News that there were just 271 total encounters for the entire southern border on Tuesday, and just 14 in the Del Rio Sector where Vance is visiting.
Fox News' Brooke Taylor and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/vance-heads-southern-border-trump-touts-sharp-drop-crossings-they-heard-my-words