April 30 marks 100 days since President Trump’s second term inauguration. His hyperactive pace constant combat and lack of focus has exhausted many voters.
Lost in the tumult is Trump’s very real illegal immigration success. Trump has already accomplished one of his top priorities—controlling the U.S. border with Mexico.
The border turn-around is remarkable and it happened with lightning speed.
An estimated 10.7 million illegal migrants crossed the southern border into the U.S. during the Biden administration. That’s about 7,324 per day.
It was an unmitigated disaster.
Trump can take credit that in February, there were just 8,326 southern border encounters, down from 189,913 in February, 2024. On Feb. 16, the Border Patrol encountered 229 illegal aliens at the border—only 3% of the average daily number under Biden.
In March, the Border Patrol reported 7,181 illegal migrants encountered crossing the Southwest border compared with 189,359 in March 2024. That’s lower than even during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The nosedive vindicates Trump’s view that presidential messaging matters.
On Day One, Trump declared an emergency on the southern border and ended the Biden-era “catch and release” policy.
He deployed the U.S. military to the border and announced plans to restart construction of the border wall.
Trump shut down the “CBP One” app, which “paroled” more than one million illegal immigrants into the country. He reinstated his “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Trump didn’t have to be punitive to control the border. And he could take aim at Democrats who claimed in 2024 that sweeping legislation was required to end the border crisis.
“But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president,” Trump told a March 4 joint session of Congress.
The cries you don’t hear anymore after Biden’s exit are from big-city mayors, mostly Democrats, about the influx of migrants they can’t afford to house.
CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten points to a “big change” in Americans’ stance on immigration policy between 2016 and now.
He references a 2025 Washington Post poll that found Americans have gotten “much closer” to Trump on immigration issues. Enten notes 56% of registered voters favor a government effort to remove all undocumented migrants in the U.S.
This marks a double-digit percentage increase from 2016 when just 38% of Americans indicated they backed such an effort.
The White House hasn’t spent much time drawing attention to the president’s immigration success and you wouldn’t know it from the lack of media coverage. Trump is yet to visit the Southwest border to highlight his achievement.
Instead, Trump is pressing forward with deportations.
Deporting gang members and criminals is popular, but public support drops when it starts to separate families or happens without due process.
Trump has provoked the Supreme Court into a needless constitutional collision in the case of El Salvador deportee Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but the public wants illegal immigration stopped.
While deportations have increased from Biden levels, they’re nowhere close to what is needed to meet the administration’s internal goal of one million a year.
On the key issue of the economy, Americans aren’t happy.
Trump’s campaign promise to stop inflation has been replaced by a fixation on raising tariffs, which three-quarters of Americans expect to increase prices.
Can Trump endure the self-harm of looney ideas?
Acquire Greenland! Take back the Panama Canal! Rename the Gulf of Mexico! Make Canada the 51st state!
The country remains polarized with true believers locked in and with 15-20% of voters who didn’t like their choices last year.
Trump started with 50.5% approving , 44.3 disapproving, in the RealClearPolitics polling average a week after his swearing in. Those RCP numbers went upside down on March 13.
Currently, Trump stands at 46.6% approving, 50.7% disapproving, a 10.3 -point margin shift in the wrong direction.
