President Trump’s border crackdown has driven known illegal-alien got-aways below 40 per day, according to a new report based on U.S. Border Patrol records.

That is a stunning 98.5 percent drop from the worst days of the Biden border crisis, when more than 2,000 known got-aways were recorded in a single day.

The figure is not a campaign slogan or a minor statistical improvement. It describes a border where cartels are losing room to move people into the country without an encounter with law enforcement.

Customs and Border Protection reinforced the administration’s message Friday with a simple video from the line: “Walls Work.”

Walls Work. pic.twitter.com/x8A4xiebGN

— CBP (@CBP) September 18, 2026

Breitbart Texas reported that Border Patrol recorded fewer than 550 known got-aways nationwide during the first two weeks of September. The figures came from agency records reviewed for the report and a source within Customs and Border Protection.

The running average came in below 40 per day. During the first six months of fiscal year 2023, by comparison, agents recorded more than 400,000 got-aways — an average above 2,200 every day.

The count includes people agents or surveillance systems see crossing illegally but do not apprehend. Sightings can come from agents, cameras, aircraft, sign-cutting and third parties.

The measure cannot capture every undetected crossing. It remains the government’s operational count of illegal entries law enforcement knows occurred without an arrest, and the collapse in that number is enormous.

The change is also visible far from Washington.

Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe told Breitbart that his deputies had encountered only two smuggling cases on local roads since January. At the height of the Biden-era crisis, deputies routinely confronted smuggling loads and dangerous high-speed pursuits.

In Eagle Pass, Assistant Police Chief Beto Garza described illegal-alien encounters by city officers as an occasional handful rather than the overwhelming traffic the community faced in late 2023.

The administration credits the turnaround to using the authority already available to the president and enforcing the law at the line.

Radical Democrats created open border chaos. Turns out, all we needed was a NEW president.

“Congress never had to act. We knew that the nation's laws were there, and the president had the authority to do it.” @SecMullinDHS

Thanks to @POTUS Trump, we’ve had 16 straight months of… pic.twitter.com/mLzBLDwLIp

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 19, 2026

The new numbers follow a broad shift under President Trump: stronger enforcement, expanded manpower, physical barriers, state cooperation and the end of policies that made illegal entry look like a viable route into the country.

Breitbart reported that a CBP source in Douglas, Arizona, now sees only small groups crossing desert terrain where groups larger than 100 were once routine.

That source also described a recent attempt by smugglers to cut a flood-gate lock and drive several vehicle loads through at once. Agents and local officers detected the move as it happened, disabled or turned back every vehicle, and prevented the illegal entry.

The tactic suggested that trafficking organizations are being pushed into riskier, more desperate attempts because the old routes no longer offer the same odds of success.

The renewed enforcement posture is also freeing agents to intercept the drugs that criminal networks try to move through border checkpoints.

A load of contraband labeled as “NON-MARIJUANA” didn’t pass the test when USBP K9 alerted to the shipment and a field test came back positive for marijuana.

Agents at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint seized 1,484 lbs. of pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes with an estimated street… pic.twitter.com/2rzGiJmA1v

— Chief Rosario “Pete” Vasquez (@USBPChief) September 18, 2026

The administration has also expanded the Border Patrol itself. CBP announced in June that the force had reached 21,271 agents, giving the agency more people to patrol the line, respond to sensor hits and close the gaps smugglers once exploited.

Enforcement does more than produce arrest totals. When the likelihood of apprehension rises and release into the United States ends, fewer people pay cartels for the trip in the first place.

That deterrent effect is what the got-away figure captures. Fewer crossings mean fewer pursuits, fewer migrant deaths in remote terrain, less cartel revenue and fewer unknown individuals disappearing into American communities.

The contrast with 2023 could hardly be sharper. The same border that produced daily got-away counts above 2,000 is now averaging fewer than 40.

President Trump promised to restore control of the border. These numbers show what happens when the federal government treats that promise as an order instead of a talking point.