Illegal entries into Arizona plummet, 60% fewer gotaways than in Biden years

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

In President Donald Trump’s first year in office, illegal border crossings in Arizona plummeted to record lows.

They represent roughly a 92% drop from illegal entries and a record number of gotaways reported in Arizona during the Biden administration.

Under the Trump administration, illegal entries in Arizona this year were 66% less than the total number of gotaways that Border Patrol agents reported in Arizona during the Biden years, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data and gotaway data exclusively obtained by The Center Square.

In fiscal 2025, 65,813 illegal border crossers were apprehended in Arizona, excluding gotaways, according to CBP data. The fiscal year goes from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

By comparison, more than 775,000 illegal border crossers were reported in fiscal 2023, including nearly 577,000 reported by CBP and nearly 200,000 gotaways that Border Patrol agents reported and exclusively obtained by The Center Square at the time.

Fiscal 2025 apprehensions represent a fraction of those apprehended in previous years, including 564,215 in fiscal 2024, 576,901 in fiscal 2023 and 571,720 in fiscal 2022, according to CBP data.

These totals exclude gotaways, the official CBP term for those who illegally enter between ports of entry to evade capture, don’t file immigration claims and don’t return to Mexico. CBP doesn’t publicly report this data. The Center Square obtained gotaway data from Border Patrol agents, reporting it each month. At least two million gotaways were reported during the Biden administration nationwide, The Center Square exclusively reported.

Many gotaways are known to have criminal records. Some are on the terrorist watchlist and many have previously been deported, law enforcement officers told The Center Square.

Arizona and Texas CBP sectors were among the hardest hit during the Biden administration, each reporting unprecedented numbers.

Arizona’s 378 miles of shared border with Mexico are divided into two CBP sectors: Tucson and Yuma. Tucson Sector’s 262-border miles extend from the Yuma County line to the Arizona-New Mexico state line. Yuma Sector’s nearly 182,000 square miles of primarily desert terrain extends from Imperial Sand Dunes in California to the Yuma-Pima County line.

For the majority of 2022 and 2023, three of Yuma Sector’s interior checkpoints were down, Deputy Chief Border Patrol Agent Dustin Caudle told Congress, expressing concerns about gotaways, The Center Square reported. The checkpoints are critical for interdicting gotaways but because agents were pulled from the field to process illegal border crossers into the U.S., the checkpoints were closed, leaving the border wide open and unmanned, he said.

In 2023, the Tucson Sector reported the third-highest number of illegal entries along the southwest border, behind the top two sectors of El Paso and Del Rio in Texas. Border Patrol agents apprehended 373,625 people and reported at least 185,866 gotaways – nearly half as many as who were apprehended, or 49%, The Center Square reported.

Tucson Sector Border Patrol Chief John Modlin testified before Congress that the majority of gotaways were single military age men working for transnational criminal human and drug smuggling organizations, The Center Square reported.

Modlin described the tactics they used to pull agents from patrolling the border and interdicting illegal crossers, called “task saturation.” It refers to when “smuggling organizations split large groups of migrants into many smaller groups [and direct them] to illegally cross the border all at once at different locations, effectively saturating the area with migrants and exhausting our response capability.” This overwhelms Border Patrol agents’ response, enabling illicit contraband and criminal gotaways to move through another area of the border without getting caught, he explained.

By 2024, the situation in the Tucson Sector reported more apprehensions than other southwest border sectors, The Center Square reported.

That changed this year after Trump implemented a series of border security policies that resulted in record low illegal crossings at the southwest border, The Center Square reported.

Under Trump’s direction, Arizona Border Patrol agents are now in the field, assisted by the National Guard and Coast Guard members. They’re no longer releasing illegal border crossers into the interior but processing them for expedited removal. The Department of Homeland Security is expanding smart wall construction and the Department of War is expanding border barrier infrastructure in Arizona. DOW, DHS, CBP and Border Patrol recruitment also reached record highs this year, including in Arizona, The Center Square reported.