One of President Trump’s main campaign promises was to close the border to illegal immigration. It’s easier to intercept and interrupt illegal border crossing than it is to round up illegal immigrants already in the United States, and that policy is absolutely working. Not only are the Border Patrol undertaking stronger efforts to stop the illegals from crossing, but the President’s policies have discouraged many more from even trying.

The Los Angeles Times is one of America’s (formerly) great newspapers, and of an extremely liberal editorial slant. But even that newspaper has to tell the truth sometimes:

California-Mexico border, once overwhelmed, now nearly empty

By Andrea Castillo | Sunday, March 30, 2025 | 3:00 AM PDT

• With so few migrants coming into the U.S., shelters that once served migrants have closed.
• The Border Patrol has been bolstered by 750 U.S. military troops dispatched to the San Diego area.
• In recent months, six miles of the border wall have been outfitted with concertina wire.

SAN YSIDRO, California  — When the humanitarian aid workers decided to dismantle their elaborate tented setup — erected right up against the border wall — they hadn’t seen migrants for a month.

A year earlier, when historic numbers of migrants were arriving at the border, the American Friends Service Committee, a national Quaker-founded human rights organization, came to their aid. Eventually the group received enough donations to erect three canopies, where it stored food, clothing and medical supplies.

But migrant crossings have slowed to a near halt, bringing a striking change to the landscape along the southernmost stretch of California.

Shelters that once received migrants have closed, makeshift camps where migrants waited for processing are barren, and nonprofits have begun shifting their services to established immigrants in the U.S. who are facing deportation, or migrants stuck in southern Mexico.

For those stymied by the newspaper’s paywall, you can also access the story here.

The story details what the pro-immigrant groups have been doing, which is to close up shop. American Friends Service Committee Program Coordinator Adriana Jasso told the Times’ reporter, Andrea Castillo, that her group is helping very few immigrants these days, because so few are even trying to enter. Why, it’s almost as though taking down the welcome sign that former President Joe Biden put out, in May of 2023, when he ended a panicdemic policy under which migrants were denied the right to seek asylum and were rapidly returned to Mexico.

In the leadup to the policy change, migrants descended on the border by the thousands.

Now, once again, potential immigrants are told no, they can’t come in, they need to make the best life they can in their original homes.

This is an uncompromised good! Now thousands of potential immigrants are deciding not to waste their time, efforts, and money trying to come to America, and realizing that, at least until a Democrat retakes the White House, they aren’t getting in here. This leads to them doing whatever they can to improve their living situation in Mexico and Guatemala and El Salvador and Venezuela, which improves life in those countries as well, albeit not a lot. It means that the pressures on our welfare and public services in the United States are reduced, and reduces demand for housing in the United States, which will eventually slow the growth in housing costs.

And, of course, it reduces the number of immigrants who come here not just to find a better life, but to commit crimes.

Since American troops arrived to bolster the Border Patrol, on January 23^rd, just three days after Mr Trump took office, they began stringing concertina wire along the border fences, to further ‘discourage’ illegal immigrants from trying to scale the wall.

(Jeffrey Stalnaker, acting chief patrol agent of the San Diego sector) said federal prosecutors in San Diego had also accepted more than 1,000 border-related criminal cases this fiscal year. And following Trump’s tariff threats, Mexico vowed to send 10,000 National Guard troops to its northern border. Those troops now meet with U.S. agents a few times a week and conduct synchronous patrols on their respective sides of the border, Stalnaker said.

While Mr Trump was unable to keep his 2016 campaign promise to have Mexico pay for the border wall, at least he’s pushed them into spending some of their money to reduce illegal immigration!

These are all things that President Biden could have done, if he had actually been committed to enforcing our immigration laws! Our 46^th President said that he needed the (supposedly) bipartisan immigration law, one which he called “essential” to making the U.S.-Mexico border “more orderly, secure, fair, and humane,” but which fortunately never passed.

The bill would force the Department of Homeland Security to shutter the border if daily illegal crossings top 5,000 migrants on average or 8,500 in a single day. Unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada wouldn’t count toward that total.

The administration could only reopen the border if encounters of illegal crossings drop to 75 percent of the number that initially triggered the closure.

DHS would also have the power to shut down the border if crossings average more than 4,000 a day for a week, and Biden has signaled he would aggressively use that authority.

Apparently the bill was not needed, because our 47^th President is shutting down the border regardless of how many or how few are attempting to cross. President Trump, enforcing the immigration laws which are already on the books, has done more in just 69 days in office than Mr Biden did in 1,461 days in office. President Biden blamed Mr Trump for the bill’s failure, but that only shows that then-former President Trump was right all along: we didn’t have to accept some illegal immigration to reduce illegal immigration in total; we could fight illegal immigration without compromise.