EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – It was just over two years ago that a West Texas congressman sounded the alarm on how illegal immigration had federal officials in El Paso running around on crisis mode.
Border agents were averaging 1,200 to 1,500 encounters a day and processing centers built to accommodate just over a thousand were holding more than 5,000 migrants, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, said at the time.
Nine hundred to 1,000 people were being released any given day with a Notice to Appear (NTA) in U.S. immigration court, straining the resources of local nonprofits feeding, sheltering and helping those migrants get to their destination.
Fast forward to Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025, and things have changed.
U.S. Border Patrol agents are apprehending only about 70 migrants a day between Hudspeth County, Texas, and the New Mexico-Arizona state line.
The processing centers in the region are holding a grand total of 50 migrants. No one is being released on an NTA and everyone apprehended between ports of entry is immediately placed on Title 8 removal proceedings, federal officials told Border Report on Tuesday. For an unspecified number, that has meant spending time at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities.
“We are no longer catching and subsequently releasing illegal aliens,” the U.S. Border Patrol said in an email to Border Report. “The Border Patrol will leverage all legal authority that allow us to expedite the removal of illegal aliens that entered the United States illegally between ports of entry.”
Migrant apprehensions have been dropping steadily since the Biden administration issued an executive order routing all asylum-seekers to southwestern border ports of entry via online appointments last June and disqualifying those who crossed the border illegally.
Apprehensions further plummeted in the sector after President Donald Trump took over. They went from 150 to 165 a day on Inauguration week to the current 70, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data and the City of El Paso’s Migrant Situational Awareness Dashboard.
Those still coming over the border wall are doing so mostly through a corridor in the New Mexico desert where a transnational criminal organization based in Juarez known as “La Empresa” is known to U.S. authorities to operate.
Few, if any migrants, are claiming asylum.
“Most of our current apprehensions are involving illegal aliens who are trying to evade arrest,” the Border Patrol said. “We are not experiencing individuals turning themselves in for asylum claims.”
Several migrant advocacy organizations have turned to the courts to restore a pathway to asylum for migrants and to stop immigration flights to Guantanamo.