Quiet on the southern front: A border agent's slow day shows Trump effect
SUNLAND PARK, N.M. ‒ Border Patrol agent Claudio Herrera steered his green-and-white Suburban up a rocky hillside, to an outcropping where migrant smugglers once lurked. It was 6:15 a.m. on a weekday in mid-May – a peak hour in what should have been peak season for illegal migration in southern New Mexico. But there was no sign of smugglers or migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border that morning. Only two U.S. soldiers in a pick-up watching a downslope into Mexico littered with water bottles and clothes, the debris of a massive wave of migration that has all but dried up. "We were averaging 2,700 individuals a day," Herrera told USA TODAY, recalling the height of apprehensions in 2023. "Right now, just to give you a comparison, we're averaging between 60 and 70 individuals." PresidentDonald Trump's crackdown on illegal migration is evident everywhere at the U.S.-Mexico border, especially in Border Patrol's now-quiet El Paso Sector, which stretches 264 miles from West Texas through New Mexico. This used to be one of the busiest sections. Two years ago, at this hour, Herrera's radio would have crackled with intel as agents tracked migrants through the desert around Sunland Park, New Mexico, just outside El Paso, Texas. Groups were scaling the 30-foot steel border fence with rope ladders, or crawling through gaps sawed into the old steel mesh fencing, hundreds of people a day in a 20-mile stretch starting at the rugged mountainside of Mt. Cristo Rey. But Trump's mix of policies – deploying the military to the border, restricting asylum, publicizing deportations – have all made for powerful messaging. So far, it's held migration at bay. Herrera stopped to survey the landscape, beside an old obelisk monument marking the borderline. There are now 6,800 soldiers working alongside 17,000 Border Patrol agents at the southern border. In El Paso Sector, the soldiers staff half a dozen Stryker vehicles, whose high-tech optics let them surveil the desert terrain for miles. Even the land itself now belongs to the military, after Trump declared nearly 110,000 acres of New Mexico borderland a "national defense area." At 6:49 a.m., a voice came through Herrera's radio – a possible migrant sighting at the base of the mountain. He jumped back into the driver's seat. Seconds later, the voice identified the suspect as a local resident. Agents aren't processing asylum-seekers anymore, Herrera said, not since PresidentJoe Bidenrestricted access to asylum at the border in June 2024. That's when crossings at the border first began their sharp decline, a trend that accelerated after Trump took office. Since then, illegal crossings have plunged to the lowest level since record-keeping began. U.S. Border Patrol reported roughly 8,400 migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in April, the latest month for which data is available. A year ago, agents were apprehending roughly that many people every two days, and encounters nearly hit 129,000 in April 2024. In the El Paso Sector, where Herrera patrols, migrant encounters fell 93% in April to under 2,000 from more than 30,000 a year ago, he said. "We used to see groups of, you know, 20, 30 individuals just on the other side of the border," Herrera said. Back then, he said, smugglers standing on high ground would "just watch whatever Border Patrol was doing and where our vehicles were deployed, so they can push migrants illegally into the country." Now, some agents are complaining of boredom, Herrera said jokingly – though the quiet radio made his point. He drove the borderline west, hugging the 30-foot fence where it begins at the base of the mountain. A black hen strutted in Mexico south of the steel bollards, in a neighborhood of Ciudad Juárez where some houses are built of plywood and palettes. An elaborate altar to the skeletal icon Santa Muerte faced north. Looking west, the fence climbed a mesa where soldiers in a Stryker vehicle surveilled the border. In good conditions, the vehicle's thermal optics are powerful enough to spot a mouse a mile away. Since Trump took office on Jan. 20, the military deployment at the southern border has cost some $525 million, according toThe New York Times. Herrera pulled the Suburban to a stop west of the Santa Teresa port of entry, in a stretch of desert far from the urban footprint of Sunland Park. Soldiers had posted red-and-white warning signs roughly the size of a sheet of notebook paper, in English and Spanish, affixed to metal posts in the sand about 30 yards north of the border fence. "This Department of Defense property has been declared a restricted area," the signs read in tiny print. Migrants who cross illegally here can be charged with trespassing on what is now a military installation. On a stretch of borderline nearby, a rebar-and-rope ladder hung atop the 30-foot steel barrier, unbothered. Smugglers and migrants often respond to significant policy shifts by adopting a wait-and-see approach. Migrant traffic dropped early in the first Trump administration, too, though not as dramatically, before climbing again. "It is definitely very, very early to know what's going to happen," Herrera said. "But the fact is," he said, "we need to always have this perfect balance between infrastructure, technology and personnel to address the different challenges we have with illegal immigration and any other illegal activity happening at the border." His radio buzzed again after 9 a.m. There were signs that a group of eight migrants had entered illegally the night before, during a dust storm that swept through El Paso and southern New Mexico. Thirteen hours later, they still hadn't been apprehended. "We're seeing a significant drop in comparison to the previous fiscal year in encounters," Herrera said. "But we haven't gained 100% control of the operations here for the El Paso Sector." Herrera drove past a stretch of southern New Mexico where the 30-foot steel bollards give way to 18-foot steel mesh. The cutouts made the shorter fence look like a patchwork quilt. Criminal organizations have been hurt by the border crackdown, he said. Migration "has become a multi-billion-dollar enterprise for the cartels," he said. "Their inability to cross individuals illegally, it's affecting them every single day." South of the fence, a man with a ski mask and hoodie quietly collected steel mesh squares, the ones that had been sawed out of the wall and discarded in the sand. Herrera said Border Patrol has a contractor whose job it is to repair the border fence all day. Meanwhile, the man loaded the squares onto the seat of his bike. He'd sell them for scrap, he said. Lauren Villagran can be reached at lvillagran@usatoday.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Trump's border crackdown already delivering results. Will it last?
Quiet on the southern front: A border agent's slow day shows Trump effect SUNLAND PARK, N.M. ‒ Border Patrol agent Claudio Herrera steer...
