Dec 30, 2017 - Politics & Policy

Fewer immigrants crossed the southwest border when Trump became president

When Donald Trump became President in January, there was a dramatic drop in the number of immigrants who illegally crossed the U.S. southwest border.

Reproduced from U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Chart: Axios Visuals
Reproduced from U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Chart: Axios Visuals

Why it matters: The uncertainty of what would happen to DACA and other Obama-era immigration policies may have caused fewer people to try to cross the border illegally. And Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Axios in October that he credited the decline in border crossings to Trump's tough-on-immigration stance.

Go deeper: Trump's first year in office saw 177,000 fewer deportations than Obama's first year.

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