Holding the Line

Crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border have hit record lows under the Trump administration but there are still smuggling and humanitarian issues to contend with, experts told Newsweek

- BILLAL RAHMAN

ENTRY BARRIER Mexican National Guard troops search the bank of the Rio Grande near the U.S. border fence on February 6. President Trump has vowed to seal the frontier.

THE UNITED STATES-MEXICO BORDER HAS been calmer than usual under President Donald Trump but still faces challenges from criminal gangs, according to a senior Border Patrol official. The Republican leader vowed to “seal the border” and has taken action including suspending asylum at the border and deploying additional military forces to bolster security. March recorded the lowest southwest border crossings in history—around 7,180, compared with the monthly average of 155,000 from the previous four years, U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures on April 1 showed.

Sean McGoffin, chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, told Newsweek that the agency still has work to do to, however, with cartels developing new tactics to smuggle humans, drugs and other contraband items into the U.S. “We don’t want anything coming across that border—narcotics, weapons, money, any of that type of stuff,” he said.

A critical component in deterring unlawful border crossings has been the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially Migrant Protection Protocols, which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for U.S. immigration court hearings. Initially implemented in 2019, it was reinstated in January.

“The message is clear: the border is closed to illegal crossings,” CBP’s Acting Commissioner Pete Flores said earlier this month. However, humanitarian groups warn that such policies come at a price.

'Desperate Measures'

“Our concern is that with the difficulty, or even the impossibility, of entry in the unforeseeable future, migrants will take desperate measures to cross the border,” Brad Jones of Arizona-based nonprofit Humane Borders told