EDITORIAL: Illegal border crossings drop dramatically under Donald Trump

Of all the pledges Donald Trump made during his presidential campaign, perhaps none drew more raised eyebrows and ridicule than his pledge to build a huge wall on the border between the United States and Mexico. But Mr. Trump’s mouth may be more effective than the wall.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the number of undocumented immigrants caught along the southwest border fell sharply last month. Approximately 840 people each day were apprehended while trying to enter the country illegally from Mexico — a drop of roughly 36 percent from February of last year. Also notable, The New York Times pointed out last week, is that February’s number was down 39 percent from January. That drop reverses a years-long trend of apprehensions rising in February as temperatures — and the number of people historically trying to cross the border — also rise.

In other words, Mr. Trump’s tough talk has helped discourage illegal crossings at our southern border.

“Deterrence through perception is central to these executive orders,” Faye Hipsman, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told the Times. “Even floating the possibility of expanding detention at the border makes somebody less likely to come.”

Of course, Mr. Trump has done more than just talk, In addition to his pledge to “build a great, great wall” and get Mexico to pay for it, Mr. Trump has expanded immigration enforcement officers’ powers and promised to hire more of them, raised undocumented immigrants’ threshold for entry into the country based on claims of persecution in their home countries, and is pushing for increased detentions and quicker deportations of those already here illegally.

Responding to the drop, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly said the early results “show that enforcement matters, deterrence matters, and that comprehensive immigration enforcement can make an impact.”

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Times that the latest drop-off in illegal border crossings mirrors that seen after the Reagan administration’s immigration reform law of 1986. That law gave amnesty to many who had entered the United States illegally before 1982, while also promising tighter security at the border and stricter penalties for companies who hired undocumented workers.

“The talk of tougher enforcement can, in fact, lead to reductions in the flow, but only for a short period of time if the words aren’t backed up with action,” said Mr. Krikorian. During the Reagan years, he noted, “the promises of tougher enforcement didn’t exactly pan out.”

We’ll see how this all shakes out in the months to come. But it’s clear that those who express a lax attitude about stemming the flow of illegal border crossings have, in fact, contributed to the problem.