Trump policy on border jumpers empowers use of 'maximum consequences,' border agent tells Fox

SAN DIEGO — The change in administration from President Joe Biden to President Donald Trump has opened up stronger enforcement possibilities for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, the agent in charge of a key sector along the southern border tells Fox News Digital.

"We have changed from a posture of catch-and-release to providing maximum consequences to the greatest extent possible for anyone and everyone who crosses," San Diego Sector acting Chief Patrol Agent Jeffrey Stalnaker told Fox News Digital.

The comments come as there has been a seemingly overnight change in the situation at the U.S. southern border, with CBP data showing that order apprehensions in February hit a nearly 25-year low, while encounters with illegal migrants dipped to just 30,000 in February, a number that was over 130,000 during the same time period in 2023 and 2024.

That reality has been in the typically busy San Diego border sector, Stalnaker said, a shift he credited to the new administration in the White House.

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"Once the new administration came in, we are able to exercise and provide consequences to the greatest extent, which then gets [illegal migrants] either jail time and/or provide them a repatriation to the country where they began their journey to the United States," Stalnaker said.

"We were in a posture of catch and release… we would apprehend [illegal immigrants], take them to our soft site facility, we would run checks on them, and then try to get them out of our facility as quickly as possible… release them with the notice to appear to go see an immigration judge," he added. "The change now is we catch them, still take them to our soft side facility, however they are not being released, we are trying to find every consequence possible and deliver that consequence to them."

The shift to a quieter border can also be credited to the deployment of U.S. military forces to the border, Stalnaker noted, pointing to the hundreds of members of the Marines, Army and Navy who have been assigned to the San Diego sector alone shortly after Trump took office.

"We also have our DOD partners with us here," Stalnaker said. "They’re a great partner, we enjoy having them out here, and the help they’re providing to us assists us with our mission."

Nearly 500 Marines have been deployed to the San Diego sector as part of Task Force Sapper, helping reinforce existing order barriers with the added protection of razor wire. The Marines will continue to help improve the border area east of San Diego, most notably where a gap in this existing structure exists.

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"We are the engineers that are conducting the construction down on the southern border in order to reinforce the existing primary and secondary barrier that exists in the San Diego sector," Lt. Col. Tyrone Barrion, the commanding officer of Task Force Sapper, told Fox News Digital, noting that the Marines' efforts have created an "obstacle that disrupts any type of activity that tries to cross over the top or through the barrier."

"That allows more reaction time for border patrol," he added.

Meanwhile, multiple companies of Army engineers and military police officers based out of Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, have been deployed to the San Diego sector to assist with surveillance and detection operations, giving CBP agents more eyes on the border and allowing them to move more quickly to apprehend illegal border crossers.

The all-hands-on-deck approach since the start of the Trump administration has contributed to the successful missions, Stalnaker said.

"It’s a force multiplier, it assists us to accomplish our mission," Stalnaker said. "And it’s not just DOD, there are additional federal partners, state and local partners, we have extremely good partnerships here in the San Diego sector that act as force multipliers. And it’s that whole og government approach that it takes for us to accomplish our mission."