On Sept. 16, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Fox News Digital the Trump administration had recorded 16 consecutive months of making no releases at the U.S.-Mexico border.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott made the claim in a statement quoted by Fox News Digital, with Mullin saying the streak shows the administration’s policies “are working.”
U.S. Border Patrol reported 8,870 apprehensions along the Southwest border in August, 5% fewer than in July, the agencies told Fox News. DHS said August apprehensions were 94% lower than the average month under former President Joe Biden.
DHS also said it made zero parole releases in August, compared with more than 10,000 releases by Border Patrol in August 2024 under the Biden administration, according to the statement provided to Fox News.
The agencies reported fiscal-year drug seizures were up 73% compared with the same fiscal period under Biden in 2024 and 61% higher than the average of the past four years. DHS said cocaine seizures rose 28% in August to 6,724 pounds, and CBP and ICE seized more than 120,000 pounds of precursor chemicals that month.
Fox News reported that construction of a section of a border wall in Arizona began in August 2026. DHS Secretary Mullin told Congress the primary wall would be finished by June 2027 and a secondary wall by summer 2028, the article said. The outlet also reported the Tohono O’odham Nation sued the administration, and U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., rejected the tribe’s argument, noting the wall would be built on a 60-foot-wide federally owned buffer called the Roosevelt Reservation.
Fox News and The Associated Press were listed as contributors to the report.
Jon Ross Myers is the executive editor and publisher of the Mississippi News Network, Mississippi's largest digital only media company. He can be reached at editor@tippahnews.com
