Former Border Patrol chief recalls Biden migrant surge chaos as Trump crackdown delivers historic turnaround

Illegal crossings along the southern border have fallen to levels the Department of Homeland Security calls historic, and the agency says Border Patrol went an entire fiscal year without freeing migrants into the interior. Retired Yuma Sector Chief Chris Clem, who ran operations there during the Biden-era influx, told Fox News Digital he sees stronger enforcement and the threat of deportation as the main reasons for the change. He also cautioned that the progress could be undone if political control in Washington shifts.

Clem described how overwhelmed his sector became in December 2021, when migrants moved through farm fields and the town itself, visited the food bank and knocked on residents' doors through the night. Daily arrivals in Yuma, he said, rose from about 25 a year earlier to more than 1,000, and neared 1,500 during one three-day span.

Preliminary DHS numbers for fiscal year 2026 count 98,708 southwest border apprehensions, about 270 per day. That compares with a Biden-era yearly average above 1.8 million, or roughly 5,000 daily. Clem said a Congress eager to reverse President Donald Trump's approach could hamper enforcement through funding and policy limits, and a later administration could go further.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →