Homeland Security: Arrests At Southern Border Hit 55-Year Low

Authored by T.J.Muscaro via The Epoch Times,

The 2025 fiscal year had the lowest number of arrests of illegal immigrants made on the U.S. southern border in 55 years, according to the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“We have had the most secure border in American history, and our end-of-year numbers prove it,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in an Oct. 7 statement.

“We have shattered multiple records this year, and once again we have broken a new record.”

The United States’ 2025 fiscal year ran from Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025. During that time, authorities made 237,565 arrests along the southern border with Mexico. That total represented an 84 percent drop from the previous year—which had more than 1.5 million illegal immigrants apprehensions—and the lowest number recorded since 1970, which had 201,780 arrests.

“The latest number includes nearly four months of the Biden administration,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in the statement.

”Arrests fell sharply after the Biden administration imposed severe asylum restrictions in June 2024.

“They plummeted more after the Trump administration virtually eliminated asylum access and dispatched thousands of military troops to the border.”

According to the department, 72 percent of the total arrests occurred during the first 111 days of the fiscal year, which took place in the final months of the Biden administration, totaling 172,026 of the 237,565 arrests.

The year ended with authorities averaging 279 arrests a day in the month of September. While that number was up from the 204 arrests per day recorded in August, it was still down considerably from the nearly 1,800 border arrests per day recorded in September 2024.

That number is also 95 percent lower than the daily average maintained by the Biden administration, which was 5,110 from February 2021 through December 2024.

The previous four fiscal years averaged 1.86 million arrests.

During the Biden administration, thousands of those arrested ended up being released into the United States, including 9,144 releases in September 2024.

DHS touted in its statement that September 2025 was the fifth consecutive month with zero releases by Border Patrol.

These low arrest numbers are being accompanied by increased deportation figures. Just before the fiscal year came to a close, DHS announced that more than 2 million illegal immigrants had been deported, or had self-deported, since President Donald Trump began his second term. As of Sept. 23, an estimated 1.6 million voluntarily self-deported using the CBP Home App, and more than 400,000 were removed.