Comment by newfriend
7 days ago
There is a huge difference between turning people away at the border and tallying a "deportation", and removing people from the interior of the US.
The flow of illegal aliens crossing the border has largely been eliminated. [1]
> should you favor a more peaceful and efficient process? Instead of a more violent and less efficient process?
I want a process that actually works. There has been no serious headway made in the number of illegal aliens for decades until now. [2]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8wd8938e8o
[2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...
Your sources don’t say what you’re claiming.
The BBC piece is about recorded apprehensions/encounters being very low (still “<9,000/month”), not that the “flow” is “largely eliminated.” Encounters aren’t the same thing as total unlawful entries, and “very low” isn’t “eliminated.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8wd8938e8o
The ABC/Brookings story is about net migration turning negative in 2025, mostly due to fewer entries. Net migration is not a measure of the unauthorized population, and the article even notes removals in 2025 are only modestly higher than 2024. https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...
Also, the claim “no headway for decades until now” is inconsistent with standard estimates: Pew shows a decline from 2007 to 2019 in the unauthorized population. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...
Your pedantry is unnecessary.
"Largely eliminated". I didn't say "completely eliminated". <9,000 per month can be considered "largely eliminated" when the previous flow was often many hundreds of thousands per month. You can see it plainly on the graph.
Yes of course encounters are not total entries. Do you have a better way of estimating?
The net migration is due to several factors. The result of "largely eliminating" the flow of illegal aliens, along with dutiful removal of those in the interior, has made a big dent. There are other factors, including legal immigration, obviously.
There were 12 million (estimated) illegal aliens here in 2007. There are MORE now. No headway has been made.
“Pedantry” isn’t the issue; your claim is doing causal work (“flow eliminated” -> “dent” -> “headway”), so it needs to be stated in a way the data actually supports.
“Many hundreds of thousands per month” isn’t what the Border Patrol encounter series shows. Pew’s analysis of CBP data puts the peak at 249,741 encounters in Dec 2023, and 58,038 in Aug 2024 (a 77% drop). That’s “down sharply,” not “eliminated.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/01/migrant-e...
Also, 58k/month annualizes to ~700k/year. You can argue that’s a big improvement, but calling it “largely eliminated” is rhetorical.
Encounters aren’t total entries, agreed, but that cuts against confidently declaring victory, not in favor of it. If you want “better,” the only “better” conceptually is something like encounters + estimated gotaways, but “gotaways” are themselves estimates and not as consistently published/transparent as encounters. So the honest phrasing is: “recorded encounters are way down.”
“No headway for decades” is false on the standard stock estimates. Pew (and others) show the unauthorized population peaked around 2007 and then declined through 2019 before rising again in the early 2020s. That’s headway, then reversal; not “none for decades.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/22/what-we-k...
It is fair to say: we’re now above 2007 again (Pew estimates ~14M in 2023), so the long-run problem wasn’t solved. But that’s different from “no headway has been made.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-...
On the ABC/Brookings “negative net migration” point: net migration does not equal unauthorized population, and the article itself notes the change is mostly fewer entries, with removals only modestly higher year over year. So it doesn’t support “dutiful removal has made a big dent” as the main story.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-n...
2 replies →
I saw you were briefly downvoted but you're correct. The number and % of illegal immigrants in the us has shot up in an unprecedented way during the prior administration, meaning whatever techniques could be argued to have worked earlier (although to your point, did they work?) may not be adequate to current scope of problem.