By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2026-10-07 15:41:56 | Updated at 2026-10-08 22:55:12
1 day ago
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released “zero” migrants at the border during the last year, border chief Rodney Scott told Breitbart News.
“It’s not out officially yet, but we’re going to report soon a full year with no releases from the border,” said Scott, the commissioner of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.
The success shows migrants that they lose money when they try to sneak into the United States, Scott said at Breitbart News’s Border Security, Public Safety, and American Sovereignty Event in Washington, DC:
Zero [releases] at the border. No new entrants coming in [because] they weren’t released. That sent a message worldwide that there’s no return on your investment: Why are you going to go pay the cartels [to] put yourself in that danger?
The reduced success rate for job-seeking migrants also undermines the cartels’ other criminal enterprises, he added:
People miss this sometimes: The cartels need the illegal [migrants]. It’s a little extra money, but really they need them to overwhelm law enforcement at the border so they can bring the higher-threat commodities, whether it be narcotics, whether it be people that pay more money to avoid being fingerprinted, terrorists, criminals. But they need clutter to drive their costs down. Now they don’t have it … they’re not getting the [migrant customer] recruits they had before.
The agency has been so successful that agents are arresting fewer than 200 migrants each day, he said.
At least eight million migrants were welcomed by President Joe Biden’s deputies, partly because Biden’s officials wanted them to reduce wages earned by Americans.
Each month, Scott’s agency also detains several hundred so-called “Unaccompanied Alien Children” who are delivered to the border by coyotes.
In August, officials detained 817 UAC migrants, down from 14,311 UACs in August 2024.
These children and teenagers are not released to their illegal migrant parents or to labor traffickers, as they were released during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Instead, they are being sent to the Department of Health and Human Services, where most are being processed for deportation back home.
Meanwhile, the cartels are trying to deliver their migrant customers via alternative routes, such as by sea.
