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Monday, Mar 3, 2025

Did encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border decrease by 95% in the first week of Trump’s presidency?

Carmela Guaglianone, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting
no

While Border Patrol encounters with migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border decreased in the first week of Trump’s presidency, there is no evidence of a 95% drop compared to the previous week. The data used to arrive at that percentage incorrectly compared the total number of encounters during Biden’s last seven days in office to the average daily encounters in the week following Trump’s inauguration, a PBS analysis found. 

From Jan. 21 through Jan. 31, 2025, encounters were down 85% compared to the same 10-day period the year prior. This dip is in line with an overall decline that began under the Biden administration: There were one-third as many border encounters in December 2024 as in December 2023, for example.  

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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network.

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The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting is the state’s only independent, nonpartisan and collaborative nonprofit newsroom dedicated to statewide, data-driven investigative reporting. AZCIR's mission is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable by exposing injustice and systemic inequities through investigative journalism.

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