WATCH: Since Trump’s Return, a Night-and-Day Difference at Southern Border

EL PASO, Texas—The streets around Sacred Heart Church were quiet, apart from a funeral procession exiting the building around 11 a.m. on Aug. 26. The lines of illegal aliens, sleeping mats on the sidewalk, and rows of porta-potties were gone.  

Sacred Heart Church, just a short walk from the border of Mexico in El Paso, operated a migrant shelter during the Biden administration. The shelter had capacity to serve about 120 illegal aliens every night, but closed in September of 2024 due to a decline in illegal crossings at the border into the El Paso Sector, which includes the two westernmost counties in Texas—Hudspeth and El Paso—and all of New Mexico.    

In May 2023, the first time The Daily Signal traveled to El Paso, more than 26,000 illegal aliens arrived in the El Paso Sector, averaging nearly 1,000 a day, which was a nine-month low.  

In 2023, illegal aliens were crossing the Rio Grande daily before being processed by Border Patrol and released onto the streets of downtown El Paso, turning the city streets into something like a quasi-homeless shelter.  

In July, just six months into the second Trump administration, Customs and Border Protection encountered about 35 illegal aliens a day in the El Paso Sector, according to CBP. And unlike under the Biden administration, no illegal aliens are being released onto the city streets.  

The El Paso Sector is one of nine sectors along the southern border, all of which have seen a dramatic decline in the number of illegal aliens arriving at the southern border.  

More than 10 million illegal aliens are thought to have entered the U.S. during the Biden administration. So far in fiscal year 2025, fewer than half a million illegal aliens have arrived at the southern border, and for several months now, the Trump administration has not paroled a single illegal alien into the U.S. 

“It’s a night-and-day difference from what we’ve seen before” at the border, interim Border Patrol Chief for the El Paso Sector Walter Slosar told The Daily Signal.  

The Border Patrol chief noted that an average of about nine illegal aliens are still managing to evade apprehension every day in the El Paso Sector.   

“Those are nine people that we don’t know who they are, [what] their intentions are, and so, we’re really focused on getting that number to zero,” Slosar said.   

Increased border security is anticipated to further prevent illegal crossings, Slosar said, praising the passage of the so-called One Big, Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed in July. The bill allocates $165 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, including $46.5 billion to complete border-wall construction, $3.2 billion for “new technology,” and $2.7 billion for “new cutting-edge border surveillance,” according to DHS.  

“The message is getting out: Do not come to the country to enter illegally,” Slosar said. 

 “My message is: Find a legal way to do that,” Slosar added. “If you have an asylum claim, you can do that in your country or at the next closest country through the Department of State and be able to do that. It really clears the clutter out of the border environment and allows our men and women in the U.S. Border Patrol to focus on those people that are trying to evade us, to identify those individuals and apply consequences to them.”  

Slosar anticipates illegal crossings will decline further as more Border Patrol agents are recruited, additional wall is built, and new technology comes online to detect and prevent illegal crossings.  

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