Border Patrol Reports Full Year With No Releases of Migrants Arrested at U.S.-Mexico Border

-Mexico border as of May 2026, capping a year of sharply reduced illegal crossings. Agents recorded 8,943 arrests at the southwestern border in April 2026 and released none. That figure marked a slight uptick from prior months but remained far below peaks under the previous administration.

Border Patrol arrests at the southwestern border have decreased from roughly 250,000 in the worst month under former President Biden to fewer than 10,000 per month under President Trump. In April 2024, agents arrested nearly 129,000 illegal immigrants at the Southwest border and released more than 68,000 of them.

Adding encounters at official ports of entry, Customs and Border Protection reported about 31,000 total unauthorized migrants in the most recent month, compared with nearly 248,000 in a comparable period under former President Biden.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the policy shift is definitive. “The days of catch and release are over. We are enforcing the nation’s laws and sending illegal aliens back to their home countries,” Mullin stated.

The Trump administration has expanded detention capacity and worked to speed up deportations so migrants spend less time in custody before removal. It has constrained humanitarian protection that had become a loophole for regular immigration. The administration is shutting down border asylum claims while operating under the same statutes that governed the Biden era.

Officials have pushed reluctant countries to take back their deportees and sought third countries to serve as outlets for those who cannot be returned home. April’s numbers, showing 8,934 migrants arrested at the southwestern border, reflected a modest rise in illegal traffic yet still produced no releases. The full year without catch and release marks the first such period in recent memory.

Immigration groups have condemned the approach, arguing that needy migrants are being turned back at the border or removed without opportunity to seek protection. The administration maintains that the prior system encouraged abuse of asylum rules. Data from April 2026 underscores the scale of the change from the 129,000 arrests and 68,000 releases recorded two years earlier.

U.S. border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in February as part of broader enforcement measures. The shift has produced sustained low arrest totals after the record highs of the Biden period.

Officials say the combination of policies has ended routine releases that once followed most encounters.