By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

More than two million illegal foreign nationals have been removed or have self-deported since January 20, the Department of Homeland Security says.

This includes an estimated 1.6 million foreign nationals who were released into the U.S. by the Biden administration who have responded to the Trump administration to voluntarily self-deport. They did so after DHS began offering stipends and taxpayer-funded flights to return to their country of origin, The Center Square reported. DHS also implemented a policy of enforcing federal immigration law by imposing up to $1,000 daily fines on those illegally living in the country, The Center Square reported.

So far this year, ICE officers nationwide have deported more than 400,000 illegal border crossers, including convicted violent criminals, and are on track to deport roughly 600,000 by the end of the year, it says.

“DHS has made it clear: the era of open borders is over. For four straight months, United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has released zero illegal aliens into the country,” it said, appearing to refer to Border Patrol agents and illegal entries between ports of entry.

However, according to CBP data, more than 13,000 inadmissible noncitizens were released into the U.S. in the first four full months of the Trump administration who arrived at ports of entries nationwide. The data was published by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, The Center Square reported. It excludes gotaways, those who evaded capture and illegally entered the country, also deemed inadmissible.

Trump administration policies have resulted in record low illegal border crossings. Last month, illegal entries remained at record lows, of slightly more than 26,000, up roughly 1,500 from the previous month, according to CBP data.

Trump policies are also acting as a deterrent, resulting in would-be illegal border crossers returning home. Thios includes “a notable increase in Latin American refugees and migrants who, having seen their plans to reach the U.S. disrupted, have initiated return movements towards Latin America,” the Mixed Migration Centre explains.

Potential U.S. illegal border crossers began their return journey primarily after they reached a Central American country or Mexico, MMC explains. Of the majority of foreign nationals MCC surveyed, 95% said they were returning to South American countries as their destination, mostly Colombia and Venezuela.

“The destinations chosen do not always correspond to the individual’s country of nationality,” MCC notes; 41% of those who responded to its survey said they were travelling to a country that wasn’t their country of origin “primarily because they had previously migrated there.”

A similar southbound migration movement was also highlighted in a new report published by a commission formed by the Ombudsmen’s offices of Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama, with support from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In the first eight months of this year, more than 14,000 foreign nationals returned from Mexico and the United States to Colombia, the commission found. “This contrasts with a 97% decrease in northbound migration flows compared to 2024,” it said, Costa Rican-based Tico Times reported. Of the nearly 200 Venezuelans who were interviewed by the commission about why they were returning, the majority said changes to U.S. immigration policy and believing they’d be refused entry into the U.S.

“The impossibility of entering the U.S., the fear of detention, deportation, and the exhaustion of resources are forcing thousands of people to return, without the freedom or adequate information to make a decision,” Colombia Ombudsman Iris Marín Ortiz said.

The reversal comes after a record more than 14 million illegal border crossers were reported during the Biden administration, The Center Square reported.