Sunland Park, New Mexico — On a recent afternoon, CBS News accompanied U.S. Border Patrol agent Claudio Herrera along this rugged stretch of the U.S. southern border.
Herrera said the area, located within Border Patrol’s sprawling El Paso sector, has long been a hotspot for the illicit movement of people and drugs. But the situation there has changed markedly in recent weeks.
“The activity is very slow,” Herrera said along the New Mexico border, which is patrolled by El Paso sector agents. “There’s multiple factors attached to why we have seen a significant drop in apprehensions recently.”
He continued: “One of them, of course, is consequences,” referring to deportations of those entering the U.S. unlawfully.
President Trump has moved aggressively to carry out the large-scale crackdown on illegal immigration he promised on the campaign trail. Since his inauguration, illegal border crossings, which were on the decline during the last year of the Biden administration, have plunged even further.
In February, Border Patrol recorded roughly 8,500 apprehensions of migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, the lowest level in at least 25 years, according to government figures obtained by CBS News.
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Asked if the dramatic change stems from new policies out of Washington, D.C., Herrera said, “It has a lot to do with that.”
Citing muscular presidential powers, Mr. Trump has effectively shut down the American asylum system, allowing U.S. border agents to swiftly expel migrants under the legal premise that the country is facing an “invasion.” He has also deployed thousands of additional troops to the U.S. southern border and tasked the military with carrying out deportations.
During that recent ride-along with Border Patrol in the El Paso sector, CBS News cameras captured a heavily fortified U.S. border, spotting Border Patrol agents, soldiers, vehicles and barriers. But there were no migrants in sight.
Mr. Trump’s crackdown was also on full display when CBS News traveled to the other side of the border.
At a shelter in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, Eduardo Medina and his wife Joanna Cortes described how they had brought their three children to northern Mexico last year after fleeing the high levels of crime and violence in the southern state of Michoacán.
CBS News
The young family said they had been staying in a small room for six months, hoping to get an appointment to enter the U.S. with the government’s permission. But the app the Biden administration set up to distribute entry appointments to migrants in Mexico, known as CBP One, was quickly terminated after Mr. Trump returned to the White House.
While her dream involved opening a restaurant in the U.S. and enrolling her children in American schools, Cortes said her family is thinking of “returning to the land where we were born” due to the suspension of the CBP One system.
“What else are we going to do?” she said in Spanish, adding later that she did not want her family to cross into the U.S. illegally.
Still, returning to Michoacán is a devastating prospect for Cortes.
Breaking down in tears, Cortes said she and her husband “sold everything” to ensure their children could have a “different life” away from the “hell” in Michoacán.
But that dream, she said, has “ended.”
Asked what he would tell families like the ones interviewed by CBS News in Mexico, Walter Slosar, the top Border Patrol official in the El Paso sector, said U.S. immigration laws must be enforced.
“We’re going to make sure that we’re securing the border, and we’re going to do so unapologetically,” Slosar said. “I understand that people ended up in these areas, but we did not bring those individuals to this specific area.”
