Customs and Border Protection recorded roughly 85,000 southwest border encounters in March 2026. That’s down about 70 percent from the peak of 302,000 in December 2023, and it’s the lowest monthly total since 2019. If you’ve been watching cable news and the subject hasn’t come up much lately, that’s why. The story changes when the numbers change.
A few factors drove the decline. The current administration tightened asylum processing rules in mid-2025, reinstated some version of “Remain in Mexico” protocols for certain nationalities, and signed agreements with Mexico and Guatemala that increased enforcement on their end. Deportation flights have been running at higher volume. Border Patrol staffing was also boosted by about 2,000 agents over the past year. None of those changes happened in isolation, and analysts disagree about which ones mattered most. The enforcement-side measures clearly had an effect, but slower migration from Central America during a regional economic uptick is also part of the picture.
What hasn’t changed: the backlog in immigration courts stands at roughly 3.4 million pending cases as of spring 2026, according to TRAC at Syracuse University. Even at reduced entry levels, the system is working through years of accumulated cases. Wait times for hearings average 4 to 5 years in many jurisdictions. That is not a function of recent border numbers; it’s the result of a decade of underfunding the court system while enforcement caught more people faster.
The fentanyl smuggling picture is separate and worth keeping separate. CBP drug interdiction data shows fentanyl seizures at ports of entry remain high, around 12,000 pounds in the first quarter of 2026. The overwhelming majority comes through legal ports in vehicles and packages, not across open land. That distinction matters for the policy debate, because more wall has no direct effect on port-of-entry trafficking.
The honest summary: unlawful border crossings are at a multi-year low and the administration deserves some credit for that. The immigration court backlog is an independent crisis that has not improved. Drug interdiction at ports is a different problem requiring different tools. Anyone telling you this is all fixed or all a disaster is working from a partial picture.