Joe Biden spent four years signaling to the world that America's border was open for business.
Three million people took him up on it – and now they're leaving.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin just dropped the number Democrats have been dreading, and it buried every argument they've made about the border since the day Biden took office.
The Scale Is Unlike Anything America Has Seen
Three million people.
That's the total number of illegal immigrants who have left the United States since Trump took office, according to figures released by the Department of Homeland Security this week.
Of those, an estimated 2.2 million left voluntarily through self-deportation.
Nearly 900,000 more were formally deported, and another 900,000 were arrested – all as of May 17.
Border Patrol recorded just 8,943 apprehensions at the southwestern border in April – a 94% drop from Biden's monthly average.
https://twitter.com/Bannons_WarRoom/status/2057128969170804925?s=20
That's not a policy tweak.
That's a complete reversal of a national disaster.
The Self-Deportation Numbers Destroy the Left's Talking Points
For years, Democrats told you mass deportation was impossible.
Too expensive.
Too logistically complicated.
Too cruel.
They were wrong about all of it – and 2.2 million people leaving voluntarily proves it.
The Trump administration built the CBP Home app to make leaving easy – travel assistance, financial support, no court proceedings.
DHS told the Senate this month that the program saved American taxpayers $39 billion.
Not $39 million.
Thirty-nine billion dollars – because people chose to leave rather than wait to be removed.
Mullin Was Right: The Catch-and-Release Era Is Over
Mullin said it plainly last week: "The days of catch and release are over."
He wasn't exaggerating.
CBP confirmed that Border Patrol went an entire year without releasing a single apprehended illegal immigrant into the American interior.
Under Biden, that was unthinkable.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2055816756996755791?s=20
The previous administration turned catch-and-release into a de facto open-borders policy – apprehend someone at the border, hand them a court date years away, and wave them through.
Most never showed up.
Biden called that compassion.
Trump called it what it was: an invitation.
What Democrats Never Admitted
Here's what the left spent four years refusing to say.
The record crossings under Biden weren't inevitable.
https://twitter.com/MorseReport/status/2053151527746089076?s=20
They weren't a force of nature.
They were the result of choices – dismantling Trump-era border agreements, gutting interior enforcement, ending Remain in Mexico, and telling the world that crossing illegally would be rewarded with a work permit and a hearing date.
The world responded exactly the way you'd expect.
Trump reversed those choices, and the world stopped coming.
Democrats understood what they were doing the whole time.
They just decided open borders mattered more than your neighborhood.
And not one of them has the nerve to say they were wrong.
Sources:
- Brittany Miller, "DHS touts millions of illegal immigrant departures as border crossings drop 94% under Trump," Fox News, May 21, 2026.
- "DHS Defends Ad Blitz Amid Senate Scrutiny, Says Campaign Drove 2.2M Self-Deportations and Saved Taxpayers $39B," Fox News, May 2026.
- "Southern Border Apprehensions Plunge More Than 90% From Year Ago in April, CBP Says," Fox News, May 2026.
