(NewsNation) — As President Biden’s administration touts dropping illegal immigration numbers at the southern border, former President Donald Trump says he has had the most secure border in history, criticizing Biden’s handling of the border crisis.
During his time in office, Trump implemented a number of controversial immigration policies, including conducting DNA testing and separating families. Meanwhile, Biden has been heavily criticized for the record number of illegal crossings at the southern border under his leadership.
Here is a breakdown of Biden’s and Trump’s track records with immigration policy.
Trump’s record on immigration
During his time in office, Trump invoked Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed border agents to swiftly remove unauthorized migrants on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. Trump continued to defend the policy after it expired in May 2023.
Trump also implemented what was called the “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially called “Migrant Protection Protocols,” in January 2019. The policy required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in a U.S. immigration court.
About 70,000 migrants were subject to the policy before Biden suspended it on his first day in office in January 2021.
While serving as president, Trump expanded the collection of DNA from migrants who cross U.S. borders to include the information in a massive criminal database operated by the FBI.
The practice allowed the government to amass a large amount of biometric data on migrants, raising major privacy concerns about whether such data should be collected even when the only crime a person is suspected of was crossing the border.
The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy separated over 5,000 children from their parents, with no tracking process or records that would allow them to be reunited.
Biden’s record on immigration
On his first day in office, President Biden fulfilled his campaign promise to end the Migrant Protection Protocols. After it was suspended, many were allowed to return to the U.S. to pursue their cases during the early months of Biden’s presidency.
In 2021, the Biden administration identified more than 3,900 children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border under former President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal crossings, providing one of the more detailed accounts of a chapter in U.S. immigration history that drew widespread condemnation.
Biden also ended the mandatory DNA testing that was expanded under the Trump administration.
Last month, Biden signed an executive order shutting down asylum requests at the U.S.-Mexico border once the average number of daily encounters between ports of entry hits 2,500. According to several people familiar with the discussions, the border will reopen only once that number declines to 1,500.
Border by the numbers
After Biden’s executive action went into effect at the southern border, he touted a drop in illegal immigration, saying encounters have gone down over 50% with levels lower than when Trump left office.
However, these numbers don’t match what border officials are reporting to NewsNation.
Since the executive action went into effect, border officials saw an average of 3,978 migrants per day. When Trump left office, they were seeing an average of 2,329 migrant crossings each day over the same number of days, according to sources at the border.
Additionally, encounters with people from special interest countries have gone up almost 1,000%, from 123 weekly encounters in 2020 to 1,205 in 2024.
While the administration touts the lowered numbers, it is important to note that the figure doesn’t include the gotaways that the CBP One app encounters, which is estimated to be about 1,500 a day. It also doesn’t include the 30,000 people being paroled every month by President Biden’s CHNV program (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans).
Other variables at the border
Besides the large number of people coming over the border, the movement of deadly fentanyl has increased substantially over the years, but seizures of the drug have dropped 30% compared to the same time last year.
National Border Patrol Council Vice President Art Del Cueto says the one thing that is common between the two administrations is a problematic vetting process.
“The numbers were lower, so it gave agents and, you know, different individuals within immigration more time to ask the proper questions of individuals when they were first apprehended, so you were able to do more investigative work,” Del Cueto said. “Now, it’s become more of cookie-cutter questioning where they come across cut-and-paste narrative and send them on their way.”
The other notable difference between the administrations is the border wall. While Biden halted construction of the wall as soon as he came into office, it is currently using up some of the funding that would have expired to build the wall in Starr County, Texas. President Trump built just over 450 miles of wall during his time in office.