Claim

“Achieved the most secure border in history – ZERO illegal aliens admitted to the United States in the past 16 months.”

Summary

The claim combines a documented, historically large decline in illegal border crossings with a misleading “zero” assertion. Border Patrol encounters have fallen to extraordinarily low levels, but federal data do not show zero illegal crossings or entries. What U.S. Customs and Border Protection actually reported was 16 consecutive months with zero releases of apprehended migrants at the border (U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP], 2026). Assistance from Claude AI.

Analysis: Accuracy, Sources, and Related Fact-Checks

The first part of the claim — “the most secure border in history” — reflects historically low levels of Border Patrol encounters, but it is broader than the available statistics can prove.

Pew Research Center, analyzing federal CBP data, reported that Border Patrol recorded 237,538 encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025, the lowest fiscal-year total since 1970 (Gramlich, 2026).

The decline continued into 2026. CBP reported 8,870 Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border in August 2026 and 10,939 nationwide Border Patrol apprehensions that month. According to CBP, southwest-border apprehensions were 94% lower than the monthly average during the Biden administration (CBP, 2026).

These figures support the narrower statement that illegal border crossings, as measured by apprehensions, are at historically low levels.

However, “most secure border in history” is not a single, objectively defined statistical category. Border security can be measured through apprehensions, estimated successful unlawful crossings, releases, removals, drug interdictions, port-of-entry activity, staffing, and other indicators. The apprehension figures alone therefore do not establish every possible meaning of “most secure.”

The second part of the claim — “ZERO illegal aliens admitted to the United States in the past 16 months” — is misleading if it is understood to mean that no one entered the country illegally.

On September 16, 2026, CBP announced “16 consecutive months of zero releases at the border.” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott described the policy as one under which people caught crossing illegally are “apprehended, detained and removed,” rather than released into the United States while their immigration cases proceed (CBP, 2026).

That is not the same as saying there were zero illegal crossings or zero unauthorized entries.

In fact, the same CBP announcement reporting 16 months of zero releases also reported 8,870 southwest-border apprehensions in August 2026. Thousands of people were therefore still being apprehended attempting unauthorized border crossings (CBP, 2026).

There is also evidence that some migrants successfully evade apprehension. FactCheck.org reported that Border Patrol Chief Rosario “Pete” Vasquez said there were 2,123 detected “gotaways” in May 2025 and 986 in June 2025. Data obtained separately through a Freedom of Information Act request showed another 6,491 gotaways during the following three months. FactCheck.org noted that more recent comprehensive figures had not been publicly released (Cuno-Booth et al., 2026).

Those figures directly contradict any literal interpretation that zero people entered illegally during the period.

FactCheck.org examined a closely related Trump statement in September 2026 that “zero illegal aliens have entered our country from the southern border in the last 15 months.” It concluded that the assertion was incorrect and explained that Trump appeared to be conflating zero releases with zero illegal entries (Cuno-Booth et al., 2026).

Pew Research Center independently confirms the larger context: since February 2025, Border Patrol recorded fewer than 10,000 southwest-border encounters per month through the period it examined, the lowest monthly totals in more than 25 years of available monthly data (Gramlich, 2026).

There is also a terminology issue with the word “admitted.” In immigration law, “admission” generally refers to lawful entry after inspection and authorization. A person who crosses unlawfully without inspection has not been legally “admitted” in that technical sense. In ordinary political usage, however, the statement strongly suggests that no unauthorized migrants entered or were allowed into the country. That interpretation is not supported by the data.

A more precise statement would be:

Border apprehensions have fallen to historically low levels, and CBP reported 16 consecutive months with zero Border Patrol releases at the border through August 2026.

That formulation accurately reflects the federal statistics. The broader assertion that zero people entered the United States illegally does not.

Overgeneralization

The claim appears to substitute one specific statistic — zero releases after apprehension — for the much broader concept of zero illegal immigration.

These are different measurements:

1. Apprehensions are people caught attempting to cross illegally.
2. Releases are apprehended migrants subsequently permitted into the interior while immigration proceedings continue.
3. Gotaways are migrants detected crossing who evade apprehension.
4. Undetected entries cannot be measured precisely because, by definition, authorities do not observe all of them.

Consequently, “zero releases” does not establish “zero illegal entries.”

End Notes

1. Cuno-Booth, P., Gore, D., Farley, R., Robertson, L., McDonald, J., & Yandell, K. (2026, September 10). FactChecking Trump’s midterm convention speech. FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center.

2. Gramlich, J. (2026, February 2). Migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border are at their lowest level in more than 50 years. Pew Research Center.

3. U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2026, September 16). Trump administration delivers 16 straight months of zero releases at the border. U.S. Department of Homeland Security.