U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on 18 January that apprehensions, encounters and humanitarian releases along the southwest border have fallen to the lowest levels since modern record-keeping began in 2000. In the first quarter of FY 2026 (October–December 2025) agents recorded 91,603 encounters—down 25 percent from the previous historic low in 2012—and released no migrants into the interior under parole or Alternatives to Detention (ATD) programs for the eighth month in a row.
Against this backdrop, VisaHQ helps both corporate mobility teams and individual travelers stay compliant by streamlining U.S. visa applications, providing real-time status updates, and flagging documentation gaps before departure; more details are available at https://www.visahq.com/united-states/.
![CBP reports record-low border encounters and zero releases for eighth straight month]()
CBP officials attribute the decline to a mix of tougher procedural bars—including the revived “Remain in Mexico” expansion—and stepped-up cooperation with Mexican and Central American authorities. The agency has doubled the number of expedited-removal flights and now fingerprints nearly all unauthorized arrivals within 30 minutes using mobile biometric kits. Critics counter that the impressive statistics mask a humanitarian crisis created by metering at ports of entry and aggressive returns of asylum seekers without credible-fear interviews.
For global-mobility managers, the operational impact is two-fold. First, the probability that transferees’ family members could be delayed by migrant surges at key land crossings (e.g., San Ysidro, El Paso) is currently the lowest in years, reducing assignment-planning uncertainty. Second, the data strengthens CBP’s internal argument for reallocating personnel from border duty to airport secondary inspection—potentially increasing random checks of work-visa holders at major gateways such as LAX, JFK and IAH.
Companies should therefore continue to coach travellers on carrying complete visa documentation—even when using APC kiosks or Mobile Passport Control—and to build extra time into itineraries during the upcoming spring-break peak. Immigration advocates meanwhile predict that litigation challenging the mass-expulsion protocols could reverse the trend later in the fiscal year.
Against this backdrop, VisaHQ helps both corporate mobility teams and individual travelers stay compliant by streamlining U.S. visa applications, providing real-time status updates, and flagging documentation gaps before departure; more details are available at https://www.visahq.com/united-states/.
CBP officials attribute the decline to a mix of tougher procedural bars—including the revived “Remain in Mexico” expansion—and stepped-up cooperation with Mexican and Central American authorities. The agency has doubled the number of expedited-removal flights and now fingerprints nearly all unauthorized arrivals within 30 minutes using mobile biometric kits. Critics counter that the impressive statistics mask a humanitarian crisis created by metering at ports of entry and aggressive returns of asylum seekers without credible-fear interviews.
For global-mobility managers, the operational impact is two-fold. First, the probability that transferees’ family members could be delayed by migrant surges at key land crossings (e.g., San Ysidro, El Paso) is currently the lowest in years, reducing assignment-planning uncertainty. Second, the data strengthens CBP’s internal argument for reallocating personnel from border duty to airport secondary inspection—potentially increasing random checks of work-visa holders at major gateways such as LAX, JFK and IAH.
Companies should therefore continue to coach travellers on carrying complete visa documentation—even when using APC kiosks or Mobile Passport Control—and to build extra time into itineraries during the upcoming spring-break peak. Immigration advocates meanwhile predict that litigation challenging the mass-expulsion protocols could reverse the trend later in the fiscal year.
