For the thirteenth consecutive month, not a single illegal immigrant apprehended at the southwest border was released into the United States to pursue an asylum claim. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data provided to Breitbart Texas show that total southwest border apprehensions in May hit 9,998, a figure 94 percent below the monthly average during the Biden administration and the lowest monthly total in more than three decades.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin framed the milestone in blunt terms:

"Thirteen straight months of ZERO releases at the border. Under President Donald Trump's leadership, we are delivering the most secure border in American history. The days of catch and release are over."

The numbers tell a story that requires no spin. Average daily apprehensions along the southwest border in May stood at 323. During peak months under the Biden administration, estimates placed the release rate at 85 percent or higher, meaning the vast majority of those apprehended walked free into American communities. Now the release rate is zero, and the overall encounter volume has collapsed.

A contrast measured in orders of magnitude

To grasp the scale of the shift, consider what the Biden years looked like at their worst. In one border sector in December 2023, approximately 17,000 illegal immigrants were arrested over just five days. The hourly arrest rate during that surge exceeded the daily average the Trump administration now records for the entire southwest border.

The New York Post reported that average daily border apprehensions in April were lower than the number apprehended in a single hour during that December 2023 spike, 298 per day versus 336 per hour. That is not a marginal improvement. It is a different reality.

May's 9,998 apprehensions represent a 96 percent drop from peak Biden-era months. The Washington Examiner noted that in April 2024 alone, more than 68,000 illegal immigrants were released into the country under the Biden administration. That single month's releases dwarfed the entire apprehension count the Trump administration now records.

CBP Commissioner Rodney S. Scott put a finer point on the comparison: "The U.S. Border Patrol released zero illegal aliens into our country again this month, unlike April 2024 when more than 68,000 were released under President Biden."

The administration had already marked a full year of zero releases at the southern border last month. Reaching thirteen months signals that the policy is not a one-off accomplishment but a sustained operational posture.

Drug seizures climb as border crossings fall

With illegal crossings at historic lows, CBP agents appear to be redirecting resources toward counter-narcotics operations, and the results are showing up in seizure data.

Combined nationwide seizures of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl, and marijuana by weight rose 32 percent in May compared to May 2024. Fentanyl seizures alone surged 72 percent from April to May 2026. Marijuana seizures climbed 61 percent compared to the fiscal year 2024 monthly average.

Overall, CBP has seized 56 percent more illicit narcotics compared to the same period during fiscal year 2024. Newsmax reported the same figures, noting the data suggest agents freed from processing and releasing migrants are now focused on intercepting drugs bound for American streets.

The fentanyl numbers carry particular weight. The synthetic opioid has driven tens of thousands of overdose deaths annually, devastating families in every state. International cartels, some of which have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations, have treated the southwest border as their primary distribution corridor. Every pound seized is a pound that does not reach an American community.

The legislative branch has moved to lock in these enforcement gains. The House passed the $70 billion Secure America Act to fund ICE and Border Patrol through 2029, an effort to ensure that future administrations cannot simply defund the enforcement apparatus that produced these results.

What the numbers do, and don't, show

The CBP data are striking, but they leave questions unanswered. The specific policies, executive orders, and regulatory changes driving the apprehension collapse are not itemized in the statistics themselves. The administration describes "strict border security measures" and "tough border security measures" without cataloguing them in these releases.

The methodology behind the drug seizure percentages also deserves scrutiny. The 32 percent combined increase is specified as measured by weight. Whether the other figures, the 72 percent fentanyl jump, the 61 percent marijuana increase, the 56 percent overall narcotics figure, use the same metric is not clear from the data provided.

And the reference to a reduction in overdose deaths, while encouraging, is not quantified. Establishing a causal link between border seizures and domestic overdose trends requires data that these monthly enforcement reports do not supply.

None of that diminishes the core achievement. Thirteen consecutive months of zero releases is a verifiable, binary fact, either people were released or they were not. The answer, month after month, has been the same.

The Senate's passage of the $70 billion immigration enforcement bill in a pre-dawn vote earlier this year underscored bipartisan recognition, however reluctant on the left, that enforcement resources matter.

The policy gap the Biden era exposed

The Biden administration's approach to the border was not merely permissive in retrospect. It was permissive in real time, documented by the government's own statistics. When 68,000 people are released in a single month, the system is not struggling to keep up. It is operating as designed, designed to move people through processing and into the interior as quickly as possible.

That design had consequences that extended far beyond immigration courts. Communities absorbed the costs. Schools, hospitals, and shelters stretched past capacity. Law enforcement agencies in cities hundreds of miles from the border dealt with populations they had no resources to track.

The security implications were not abstract. A foiled terror plot targeting the White House allegedly involved a Mexican illegal immigrant who had received DACA protection, a reminder that vetting failures carry national security risks, not just administrative headaches.

Commissioner Scott summarized the current posture plainly: "Every minute of every day President Trump's border security policies are making every American safer."

The enforcement dividend

The drug seizure increases illustrate a principle that border hawks have argued for years: when agents are not consumed by processing and paperwork for mass releases, they can do the job they were trained to do. Interdicting narcotics, dismantling smuggling networks, and patrolling terrain instead of babysitting intake facilities.

A 72 percent month-over-month jump in fentanyl seizures does not happen because cartels suddenly got careless. It happens because the people chasing them have time and bandwidth.

The Trump administration has also moved to overhaul customs enforcement more broadly, targeting duty evasion alongside narcotics trafficking, a recognition that border security is not a single-issue problem but an institutional posture.

What thirteen months means

A single month of zero releases could be dismissed as a statistical blip. Three months might be called a honeymoon effect. Thirteen months is a pattern. It reflects sustained operational commitment, maintained policy architecture, and a refusal to quietly resume the catch-and-release cycle that defined the prior administration.

The 94 percent decline in apprehensions is not just a measure of enforcement. It is a measure of deterrence. People stop coming when they know they will not be released. Smuggling networks lose customers when the product they sell, entry into the American interior, is no longer available.

Secretary Mullin stated that the administration is "enforcing the nation's laws and quickly sending illegal aliens back to their home countries, ensuring the safety and sovereignty of our nation." Whether that language came from a press release, a press conference, or a social media post is not specified. The data behind it, however, speak clearly enough.

For years, Americans were told that the border was too long to secure, the flows too large to stop, the legal framework too broken to enforce. Thirteen months of zero releases and a 94 percent drop in apprehensions suggest the real problem was never the border. It was the people running it.