What do the June border reports really show?
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data released June 3, 2026, Border Patrol recorded roughly 128,000 encounters along the southwest border in May 2026, down from 181,000 in May 2025. The drop reflects tighter enforcement and seasonal patterns, not a solved crisis. The direct taxpayer burden for detention, court backlogs, and local services remains enormous in communities that never asked for the load.
Politicians in both parties will take a victory lap over any downward line on a chart. They should not. A border that averaged more than 4,200 encounters per day last month is not secure. It is simply less overrun than it was under President Biden's worst months in 2023 and 2024. That is a low bar. The American worker deserves better than a low bar.
The report also showed that removals lag far behind encounters. In May 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported about 11,800 people while nearly 40,000 new cases entered immigration courts. The backlog now sits above 3.6 million cases. Some applicants will wait more than seven years for a final decision. A country that cannot decide who enters or leaves is not enforcing sovereignty. It is managing decline.
Texas communities feel the mismatch every day. Brownsville, El Paso, and Laredo have absorbed tens of thousands of released migrants into local shelters, schools, and hospitals. City budgets were not built for that load. Federal reimbursement covers only a fraction of the cost. And the workers who compete for the same entry-level jobs see wages flattened by a labor pool that expands through federal inaction.
Who pays for the border failure?
The direct bill for border failure falls on American families in the form of higher taxes, borrowed money, and suppressed wages. The Department of Homeland Security requested $7.2 billion for ICE detention and removal in the fiscal 2027 budget, up from $6.4 billion enacted in fiscal 2026. That money does not arrive from nowhere. It comes from the same Treasury that borrows $2 trillion a year to keep the lights on.
Working-class Americans pay twice. They pay through taxes that fund detention centers, immigration judges, and asylum officers. Then they pay through wages that do not rise because employers can always find someone willing to work off the books for less. Construction, hospitality, meatpacking, and landscaping have seen this pattern for decades. It is not racism to say so. It is arithmetic.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data from May 2026, hourly earnings for non-managerial workers in accommodation and food services rose just 1.8 percent over the past year, below the 2.7 percent consumer price inflation reported by the same survey. When wages fail to keep up with prices, the people at the bottom get squeezed hardest. Many of those workers are Hispanic citizens. Many are legal immigrants. They followed the rules. Their government should protect them from unfair competition, not invite more of it.
Local school districts are another hidden cost. In Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix, districts reported enrolling thousands of migrant children with limited English proficiency in the 2025-2026 academic year. Federal law requires those students to be educated. That is the right thing to do. But Washington rarely sends the money to cover the extra teachers, counselors, and classroom space. The cost lands on property taxpayers. And property taxpayers are disproportionately working families who already struggle with mortgage rates above 7 percent.
What should Congress do instead?
Enforcement must stay, but enforcement alone is little more than a Band-Aid on a broken labor market that rewards illegal hiring and punishes legal workers. Congress should pass mandatory E-Verify nationwide, penalize employers who knowingly hire illegal labor, and tie work visas to actual labor market needs instead of political favors. Those three steps would do more for wages than another wall.
A nationwide E-Verify system would remove the jobs magnet that draws people across the desert in the first place. Arizona and Mississippi have already proved it works when employers face real consequences. The federal government has no excuse for delay. If Washington can track every gun sale and tax return, it can verify a Social Security number before a paycheck is cut.
Legal immigration should serve American interests, not corporate balance sheets. The H-2A and H-2B visa programs expanded repeatedly while domestic workers in construction and agriculture saw stagnant pay. That is not immigration. It is a subsidy for cheap labor dressed up in paperwork. Reform those programs so they protect wages and working conditions. Then expand merit-based green cards for skilled workers who build new businesses and pay more in taxes than they receive.
Finally, Congress must fix asylum. The current system rewards anyone who can memorize a credible fear script. Immigration judges need authority to deny weak claims quickly. Detained applicants should receive a decision within 180 days. Those with legitimate claims deserve protection. Those gaming the system deserve a fast ticket home. Mercy and order are not enemies.
The border numbers in June 2026 are better than they were. Good. But better is not solved. American workers have carried the cost of failed immigration policy for two generations. They are tired of being told to celebrate a smaller flood while their paychecks still shrink. The Alamo Post stands with the citizen who plays by the rules. It is time Washington did the same.
