Why Hasn't Trump Visited the Border Yet?
By Dan Gooding
If there is a single, unalloyed success of the new Trump administration, it is taking place along the southern border.
Illegal crossings last month were down a staggering 95 percent from a year prior, according to official data — part of a trend that began under Joe Biden but has accelerated under Trump, due at least in part to the president's hardline approach to immigration enforcement and deals with countries in Latin America to stem the tide of migrants before they reach American soil.
Polls routinely show that while the public has deep concerns about much of the president's domestic agenda, his immigration policies are broadly popular. Even Democrats have taken notice, moving toward the center on issues like mass deportations and border security.
But Trump, despite his love of pageantry and TV-ready set pieces, has not visited the border since taking office. He has not gone to celebrate his achievements, or to thank the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers who patrol the near-two-thousand-mile stretch of land. While Vice President JD Vance visited once in March, Trump's last visit was on the campaign trail in August 2024.
Donald Trump southwest border win
U.S. President Donald Trump (inset) focused heavily on the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border during his 2024 election campaign, but has not visited the area to celebrate the big drop in illegal crossings. Chip Somodevilla/PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
"I think that today the president is less focused on the border crisis than he is focused on creating an immigration crisis internally," Tony Payan, director of the Center for U.S. and Mexico at Rice University's Baker Institute, told Newsweek.
"Once the number of immigrants at the border dropped down to practically a fraction of what it used to be, the president seems to have turned against legal immigrants, foreign students, activists exercising the right of free speech, and harassing, and of course trying to deport, entire groups of individuals, like the Venezuelan, which the Supreme Court just authorized, or trying to make life quite difficult for undocumented migrants so that they self-deport."
Trump's Threats Paid Off
Since January, CBP has reported a big drop in illegal crossings along the southwest border between official ports of entry. In April, 8,383 were reported – around 120,000 fewer than the same month last year.
While a slight rise on the previous month's 7,181 so-called 'encounters', the downward trend that began in June 2024 has clearly accelerated since Trump took office. Trump's election and inauguration in 2017 had a similar effect.
The White House and the wider Republican Party have marked this down to the change in administrations. As recently as this week, Trump allies in Congress have repeated a comment made by Trump during his joint address on March 4.
"The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border," Trump said. "But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president."
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Newsweek asked the White House if Trump would make more of the wins along the southwest border, given it had been such a big campaign issue for him, and whether he planned to meet with CBP agents to make those accomplishments.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson did not answer these questions, instead reflecting a similar line to Trump's March 8 speech and suggesting that his focus is on deportations and fighting the federal injunctions that have hobbled his broader immigration agenda.
"President Trump secured the border in record-breaking time despite Democrats insisting we needed new legislation to do it – turns out all we needed was a new President," Jackson told Newsweek.
"Now, while maintaining a secure border, the President is working to remove dangerous criminal and terrorist illegals from the country and truly Make America Safe Again. The only question is, will radical liberal judges and Democrats continue taking the side of illegal criminals over the American people?"
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem
United States Customs and Border Protection announced on Saturday, March 15, that approximately seven miles of new border wall would be built in Hidalgo County, Texas, in the first contract of this kind awarded during... More Getty images
Should he make a visit, there would be numerous opportunities to show off the changes Jackson noted. New federal resources have been allocated toward construction of the border wall that Trump made a centerpiece of his first campaign, and the flow of migrants from Mexico into the U.S. is down so dramatically that emergency centers set up by the Border Patrol are now being dismantled.
"I think he absolutely should go to the border and take a victory lap," Republican strategist Matt Wylie told Newsweek. "If Trump were to show up at the border and really highlight this and do this in a way that makes sense, very presidential, bring in other members of Congress, it could be a lift, not just for the president, but for Republicans on this issue.
"I think this is a defining issue of this presidency and it's getting lost in the chaos of what's happening."
The chaos Wylie referred to includes the multiple legal battles the Trump administration faces when it comes to its actions on immigration, including related to constitutional questions of due process and birthright citizenship.
Mexico as 'The Wall'
Immigration into the U.S. is not just a domestic issue, with Mexico facing its own challenges in managing the flow of arrivals from its southern border and needing to be seen as cooperating with its northern neighbor.
Payan, who specializes in cross-border issues, told Newsweek that since her election in 2024, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum has been stuck with policies from her predecessor, and had struggled until recently to get a grip on the flow of arrivals.
"The president in Mexico has not been able to accomplish a single item on her agenda, her own agenda," Payan said. "Then Trump complicated things for her by threatening tariffs, and imposing tariffs."
Mexican military on the border
Mexican soldiers monitor motorists crossing into the United States at a new military checkpoint on February 07, 2025 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. John Moore/Getty Images
He believes that the tariff threats have worked for Trump, with Sheinbaum imposing a number of measures on immigration enforcement. She has implemented stricter visa requirements to enter Mexico and deployed more agents along migration routes to ensure immigrants are detained and deported before reaching the U.S.
"I think Sheinbaum is going to ensure that Mexico is effectively shut to migrants," Payan said. "The president of Mexico is effectively implementing the policies that were imposed by Donald Trump, because she has an interest in ensuring that this doesn't become a crisis again. Mexico will pay a high price for that.
"So, I think Trump has really done it. He got Mexico to pay for it. Clearly Mexico, despite the rhetoric, has become the wall."
A Focus on Interior Enforcement
With border encounters plummeting, much of the first four months of Trump's second presidency has been focused on the second leg of his immigration agenda: arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants already in the U.S. More removals, while not nearly as high as Trump has pledged, are coming from within the country's interior, rather than from those detained at or near the border.
The focus on interior enforcement, through beefed-up ICE raids and increasing local partnerships with police and sheriff departments, has thus dominated the immigration debate.
Following the election, when Trump said he would develop more so-called 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement, Newsweek spoke to Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland of Terrell County, which borders Mexico. The former Border Patrol agent said at the time that the border badlyt needed more resources once Trump was in office.
Newsweek followed up with Cleveland Wednesday, asking whether he thought the president should return to the border soon. He said he did not see the importance of such a visit, as Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had made their own trips. But he did have concerns that the current enforcement level may not be sustainable.
"President Trump has done his part, now it's time for Congress to do their part," the sheriff said. "I do believe as resources in other areas are increased, we may see an increase in activity in the Big Bend Region and specifically here in Terrell County. This area has never received the amount of resources as other areas, but our activity was lower as well. We are vulnerable and may be the next area to be exploited."
Us Capitol Building
The U.S. Capitol is seen after the House narrowly passed a bill forwarding President Donald Trump's agenda at the U.S. Capitol on May 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Republicans in Congress are looking to pass a budget that would dramatically increase resources for the Border Patrol and ICE, including expanded detention capacity and new technology along the border. Some immigration advocates and Democrats feel longer-term solutions in the form of more sweeping bipartisan legislation are still to ensure that there is not another crisis at the border in the future.
Democratic Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, who has been named as a potential presidential candidate in 2028, released his ideas for a comprehensive reform of the system recently, but Wylie told Newsweek that focusing on lasting changes should be something Republicans should be doing while they have control of Congress.
"For Trump to show up at the border, highlight the successes and lay out a long-term plan, that feels like a real strategy for immigration," Wylie said.
"Not just this executive order approach that we're taking, that is being challenged by courts across the country, but a real long-term plan, and work with Congress to develop meaningful immigration strategy is something that can ensure Republican victories for decades."
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