What the numbers actually show
U.S. Customs and Border Protection logged more than 2 million encounters along the southwest land border in fiscal year 2023, a record high that fell only modestly in fiscal year 2024 to roughly 1.8 million. These figures come from the agency itself, and they measure people agents actually caught, not the ones who slipped past.
That gap matters more than any press release. The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged to Congress that the true volume of illegal crossings exceeds the official encounter total because agents cannot be everywhere at once. The agency calls these unapprehended crossings gotaways, and even conservative estimates run into the hundreds of thousands per year. A country that does not know who entered cannot claim to control who entered.
Texas has spent more than $4 billion since 2021 on fencing, troop deployments, and state-level arrests through Operation Lone Star, according to the Texas Legislative Budget Board. The Texas Department of Public Safety reports that the operation has produced over 500,000 migrant apprehensions and tens of thousands of criminal arrests. Those numbers do not prove every tactic is perfect, but they prove that enforcement produces results when leaders decide to enforce.
Meanwhile, immigration courts now face a backlog of more than 3 million cases, according to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Cases are scheduled years into the future, which defeats the purpose of removal proceedings and signals to the world that showing up is enough to stay indefinitely.
Why enforcement stalls in Washington
Congress writes immigration laws it refuses to fund fully, and the executive branch issues guidance that narrows the scope of those same statutes. The result is a permanent loop of hearings, outrage, and little change, because both parties raise money from the issue while Border Patrol agents receive contradictory orders.
The Immigration and Nationality Act gives the executive broad power to detain and remove aliens who cross illegally. Yet Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates with roughly 41,000 detention beds, a number that does not match the scale of enforcement needed for a border that sees millions of encounters. The agency routinely releases migrants into the interior because there is no space to hold them.
Sanctuary jurisdictions compound the problem. Cities such as Chicago, New York, and Denver have spent hundreds of millions of dollars housing migrants while refusing to cooperate with federal immigration detainers. The city of New York alone has reported costs exceeding $1 billion for migrant shelter and services. That is money taken from parks, libraries, and homeless citizens.
Politicians call this compassion. But compassion that ignores consequences is not compassion. It is a transfer of costs from the federal government to local taxpayers and from law-abiding immigrants to those who cut the line.
The lie about enforcement being impossible
Federal law already authorizes detention, expedited removal, and employer sanctions; the tools are on the books and have been for decades. The problem is not a shortage of statutes but a deliberate choice by political appointees to narrow who qualifies for removal and to avoid interior enforcement.
The Remain in Mexico policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, reduced illegal crossings during its first implementation, according to data cited by the Department of Homeland Security. The Title 42 public health order also lowered encounters before its expiration in May 2023. Those measures were not perfect, but they demonstrated that policy decisions change behavior at the border.
Employer enforcement works the same way. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act made it illegal to hire workers who are in the country without authorization. Yet worksite audits and criminal prosecutions of employers have fallen to low levels compared with the size of the illegal labor market. The Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration know when wages do not match legal names. They do not act.
When consequences disappear, incentives shift. Word travels fast in a global economy with smartphones. Smuggling networks charge thousands of dollars per person, and the United Nations estimates that migrant smuggling generates billions in annual revenue worldwide. Weak borders are not a victimless policy.
What Americans should demand now
Voters should demand that Congress fund detention beds, immigration judges, and border barriers at levels that match the volume of illegal crossings, and then hold agencies accountable for using those resources. Anything less is theater, and theater does not stop human trafficking, fentanyl loads, or the exploitation of desperate families.
They should also demand that the executive branch end catch and release by restoring detention and removal programs that were working before political appointees dismantled them. The Border Patrol union has long warned that agents spend too much time processing paperwork and too little time patrolling the line. That is a management failure, not an agent failure.
Finally, Americans should reject the false choice between a secure border and a humane border. The most humane outcome is a system that is fast, fair, and enforced. A system that invites people to cross deserts and rivers is not humane. A system that rewards cartels is not compassionate.
The border is not a force of nature. It is a policy outcome. And the policy can change the moment Washington decides that the public interest matters more than the fundraising email.
