Washington: US President Donald Trump told his Cabinet that the United States has recorded “zero” illegal entries for six consecutive months, even as senior officials outlined sweeping crackdowns on visa fraud and undocumented migration, developments being closely watched by Indian nationals, H-1B professionals, students, and diaspora families.
Trump said on Tuesday that the administration had reversed what he called “the worst border crisis in world history,” asserting: “For six months in a row, zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the United States. You believe that, zero.” He added that illegal border crossings had “plummeted to the lowest level ever recorded, ever recorded.”
He credited the Border Patrol, ICE, and the military, saying they had transformed a previously “nasty” situation: “Now they don’t even come up. Nobody comes up. It’s an easy job. I made your job a lot easier, because they know they’re not going to get through.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said her department had been focused on reversing practices of the previous administration.
She alleged that Joe Biden “used this department to invade the country with terrorists” and “opened up the borders” to anyone who could reach US entry points. “So it’s our job to get them out,” she said.
Noem said the administration had already removed “two million people” who were in the country illegally. “People that were here illegally, you’ve removed from our country and sent home, and we’re going to send more home for the holidays,” she told the president.
The department, she said, was preparing to hire its “10,000th ICE officer,” and had processed “hundreds of thousands of applications” for recruitment. She added that fentanyl flow over the southern border had been cut by “over 56 per cent,” and highlighted maritime interdictions, saying the US had “saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you’ve blown up in the Caribbean.”
Noem said Trump had directed her to investigate state-level visa abuse, which she described as severe: “Fifty per cent of them are fraudulent, which means that that wacko Governor Waltz either is an idiot or he did it on purpose. And I think he’s both, sir.”
She said individuals were “brought in there illegally that never should have been in this country,” including those who “said they were married to somebody who was their brother,” and who had “signed up for government programs,” taking “hundreds of billions of dollars from the taxpayers.” Trump responded: “Good.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Justice Department was supporting DHS enforcement, noting wins in immigration-related litigation. “We’re winning nationwide injunctions,” she said, while citing actions against sanctuary cities and prosecutions tied to violent crime.
For diaspora communities — particularly Indian students, tech workers, small business owners, and families awaiting visa decisions — the administration’s rhetoric signals a continued emphasis on enforcement, tighter scrutiny of state programs, and more aggressive federal oversight of entry routes.
Trump repeated his assertion that strong borders were central to national recovery. “We take people in, but they have to come in legally,” he said. “We had millions of people coming in a year, millions. Now we have zero for six months.”
Indian American advocates say the policy environment affects everything from H-1B pathways to student visa adjudications and family immigration timelines. The administration’s emphasis on fraud, vetting, biometrics, and removal operations is expected to remain a top theme as 2026 approaches.
(IANS)
