Homeland Security and Border Policy

The Department of Homeland Security used the night of President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union to release a statement asserting that in the past 13 months “nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S.” and that his second‑term policies have produced “the most secure border in American history.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem credits an immigration crackdown with an estimated 2.2 million self‑deportations and more than 713,000 formal deportations, and says total border apprehensions under Trump are lower over his term than in a single month under President Biden, without providing underlying data. The department also touts removal of more than 1,500 “known or suspected terrorists,” nearly 8,000 gang‑related arrests, increased drug seizures by Customs and Border Protection, and about 550,000 pounds of narcotics seized by the Coast Guard, while claiming to have helped locate 145,000 unaccompanied children it says were “lost” during the Biden era. At the same time, DHS blames congressional Democrats for the ongoing partial DHS shutdown that has left many employees, including some at the Secret Service and TSA, working without pay, framing the lapse as endangering national security. The numbers and superlatives—especially the vast self‑deportation figure and the “most secure ever” label—are politically explosive, but in this release they remain unaccompanied by public methodology or independent verification and should be treated as administration claims rather than established fact.