Mayorkas says border patrol encounters are down more than 40% since Biden enacted new asylum restrictions

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Wednesday that, since President Biden enacted new restrictions three weeks ago that prohibit migrants from seeking asylum if they cross the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully, border patrol encounters are down more than 40%.

Video transcript

Our team did an exceptional job quickly implementing this new policy and we are already seeing the results here in Tucson.

We have seen a more than 45% drop in us border patrol encounters since the president took action and repatriations of encountered individuals in Tucson have increased by nearly 150%.

As a result in Tucson, we have seen a more than 80% decrease in individuals placed into immigration proceedings.

And our backlogged court system across the entire southern border border patrol encounters have dropped by over 40%.

We are removing more non citizens without a legal basis to stay here, nearly doubling the rate at which we are removing non citizens directly from border patrol custody here in Tucson and across the southern border.

In three weeks, we have operated over 100 international repatriation flights to more than 20 countries and removed or returned more than 24,000 individuals.

The president's actions are working because of their tough response to illegal crossings and because they built on our sustained effort to exercise our full authorities to enforce the law and impose consequences for illegal entry