Arrests of illegal border crossers have come crashing down from as much as 250,000 per month during former President Joe Biden’s tenure to less than 10,000 per month under President Donald Trump.

The drop in illegal border crossers means agents are not busy inside processing facilities, interviewing migrants, transporting them, and the gamut of tasks associated with temporary detention.

It has freed up Border Patrol to be able to assist ICE by deploying its own agents across the country to assist their partners at the Department of Homeland Security, tracking down illegal immigrants who have criminal histories or who a judge has ordered be deported.

Last week, ICE and Border Patrol officials disclosed to the Washington Examiner that tensions are running high between agencies as border agents have moved in to help ICE, and senior border officials are being installed at ICE’s top ranks. Both feel the other is to blame for the millions of illegal immigrants who were released into the United States during the Biden administration and have struggled recently to work together and emerge as one united front.

Despite its work with ICE, Border Patrol still has plenty of time to focus on drug smuggling and other threats, as well as take a step back and consider what needs to be addressed internally to be more effective in the future.

At the top of the list, officials said the most necessary tasks include building up the workforce, bolstering physical and digital barrier, smartly spending funds from Congress, and codifying select executive actions by Trump.

Strengthening infrastructure

In October, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would put $4.5 billion toward a “small wall” at the border. Border Patrol Chief Mike Banks told the Washington Examiner in October that shoring up the actual border was a nonnegotiable.

“First and foremost, we’re investing in infrastructure, and we have a plan to be a lot more aggressive in getting that infrastructure laid down, you know, in the remaining three years that we have in this administration,” Banks said in an interview. “What I can tell you from my years of experience in the Border Patrol is that walls do work.”

A “smart wall” pieces together physical steel barrier with state-of-the-art technology, lighting, and roads. It also uses AI and machine learning to collect data on who is coming across and can alert the closest agent in the field to respond, rather than requiring an agent to watch cameras and sensors.

Congress approved $140 billion for border security and immigration enforcement through the One Big, Beautiful Bill, making the infrastructure improvements possible.

Of that figure, $50 billion will go toward facility upgrades at many of U.S. Customs and Border Protection hundreds of facilities, new communications and surveillance technology, and infrastructure like physical barrier. Border Patrol makes up one-third of CBP, and the other components are officers at the ports of entry, as well as air and marine agents who man the sky and sea.

Chuck DeVore, chief national initiatives officer for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said the smart wall will give agents “domain awareness.”

“When you have domain awareness with the fusion of critical intelligence, then you have a machine gathering all of this stuff in relation to time and presenting a picture to you that is a real-time understanding of what is going on at the border,” DeVore said. “That allows you to deploy your limited assets … so now you can move to meet the threat.”

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said he pushed for the inclusion of funding to improve Border Patrol’s dozens of highway checkpoints, which serve as a way for goods or people who made it through the ports or between the ports to be intercepted north of the border.

“Unfortunately, the infrastructure and technology surrounding these checkpoints are outdated,” Gonzales said. “Eagle Pass in my district is a critical trade route between the U.S. and Mexico, and the checkpoint in this area is only one lane. This backs up traffic severely and puts a strain on not only our Border Patrol agents expected to man these stations, but also trade, tourism, and security priorities in the region.”

Bolstering the workforce

Hiring and retention topped many of the officials’ lists. Border Patrol has approximately 20,000 agents on its payroll as of October, but can afford 5,000 more agents.

Under Trump, Border Patrol has received 100,000 applications as of Oct. 15.

Jason Owens, the most recent Border Patrol chief to retire, noted it is important that staffing is increased “the right way” without rushing into it and making mistakes in the process that negatively impact the workforce in the long run.

“One of the first things that always suffers when you try and push through a bunch of people are the standards,” Owens said. “You lower the standards. Well, that has a detrimental effect … and has an adverse impact on the reputation, on the safety of the other officers, on the American people.”

Earlier this year, ICE slashed its five-week Spanish language course and even moved some academy training to at-home, pre-academy work. Owens was adamant that standards not be lowered in an effort to broaden who can qualify in the first place or make it through training.

Hiring well-qualified candidates also required things further downstream to be ready, such as staffing and accommodations at the Border Patrol Academy in New Mexico, the stations where they will be assigned, and even the towns they are going.

“We don’t serve in the most urban and populated areas in the country. So you can, you can send, for example, 300 agents to Marfa, Texas. Where are they going to live? Where are their kids going to go to school? Where is their spouse going to work?” Owens said. “These are all things that take time. The communities have to adjust to the size, the growth that is going to see as a result of you, plussing up your organization that takes time.”

Banks noted that hiring was not the end-all-be-all. The median age of a retiree dropped to 50 under the Biden administration due to the extreme demand on agents as millions of people came over the border in a short period of time.

“It created some leadership gaps for us in the Border Patrol with those senior people retiring, and so we’re investing very heavily in training and building that leadership back up,” Banks said. “We’re going to invest heavily in our leadership training and developing our leadership.”

CBP received $6 billion this year for retention and staffing.

Legislative follow-through

The Trump administration’s ability to get a hold on the southern border came in the face of congressional inaction.

Although lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pushed for legislative changes to immigration policy during the Biden administration on the basis that it would address the border crisis, Trump has been able to stop mass illegal immigration with executive action and rhetoric.

That does not mean that legislative fixes are not needed. Gonzales represents the largest congressional district on the southern border at more than 800 miles of the roughly 2,000-mile boundary.

“President Trump’s border security and immigration executive orders solidified priorities I’ve championed for years in the House to keep Americans safe — including designating cartels and transnational criminal organizations as terrorist groups,” Gonzales wrote in an email. “I’d like to see Congress codify these executive orders into law to ensure that even after President Trump concludes his term, his policies live on.”

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CBP senior advisor Ron Vitiello said since very little has changed on the legislative side, the focus ought to be on implementing the funding the agency has received from Congress to shore up the Border Patrol for years to come.

“We deploy smartly on the investments that Congress elected to fund, and they truly are investments,” Vitiello said. “This is a generational change. You lay down another 500-plus miles of border barrier — that’s definitive.”