The Great Border Illusion

Millions Erased As Enforced Disappearance Is Now DHS Policy

The Great Border Illusion is like a sinister magic trick. Making human rights, civil rights, and the American constitutional order transform into a totalitarian hellscape. All while convincing millions of people that “illegal aliens” have been stopped from “invading” our country. At the same time, giving liberals Epstein sized distractions, as if it’s more important for the public to know the names of elite pedophiles who are lurking around – while open criminality is being flouted from the White House on a daily basis – as if there needs to be more investigations or hearings.

For months, the American public has been told a story of unprecedented success at the southern border. If you watch Piers Morgan or other Trump propagandists, you will hear them echo this non-stop. Even those public performers who claim to oppose Trump will give him credit for this. They all say, universally, that the data proves it: Donald Trump has ended the crisis at the border. You can blame Joe Biden for it, or you can ignore however it was caused. But that crisis which Americans agree has gone on at the Southern border, is essentially over. Trump is credited with solving that problem.

Though Trump has often claimed that the number of illegal crossings is essentially 0, the truth is not what it seems. Official figures from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) trumpet dramatic, even historic, reductions in illegal crossings, with some reports claiming a staggering 90-95% decrease since January 20, 2025. 

Victory In Tweet Only

President Trump’s administration, riding a wave of executive orders designed to deter and remove, has declared victory, asserting that the border is more secure, more controlled, and hitting unprecedented levels of operational success.

But these numbers, as impressive as they appear, are not the full story. The narrative of zero releases and plummeting encounters masks a far more sinister reality: that individuals attempting to – or being trafficked across – our borders are simply disappearing from official records, falling into an opaque system where their fates are unknown, and where the risk of exploitation, including human trafficking, is gravely amplified. This has been happening domestically at facilities like Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” which is in a border state. The idea that the federal government would only reserve such cruel & unusual treatment to people ICE nabs off the street, is juvenile.

For anyone in policy, law enforcement, or human rights advocacy, the questions raised here should not only raise eyebrows, but compel urgent action.

Revisiting The American Border Hoax

Let’s begin with the official statistics.

Fiscal Year 2024 saw an astounding number of encounters at the U.S. border.

This data has been used by Republicans and Trump himself, to claim Joe Biden had an “open borders policy” which resulted in an “invasion” that Trump used to declare multiple states of emergency, granting himself innumerable powers as President. I articulated the lie in this idea in a piece called, The American Border Hoax, which explained that American Presidents have, for many years, lied about this issue.

The illusion that has been created, is that there are millions of people who are breaking our laws in order to take advantage of us. This illusion carries with it a narrative that claims those other countries these people are fleeing from are so bad, that they flee to the United States for a better life. While that may be true of a lot of people abroad, that is not the reason for this influx of refugees and people being trafficked.

That is the fault of Presidents who wage illegal wars or launch military actions and coups that disrupt other countries in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Our military, led by commanders in chief, make humanitarian promises.

Those promises include taking people in who become displaced.

It’s not an open borders policy led by a “border czar,” allowing people to “pour in.”

It’s American Presidents using the military to traffic vulnerable refugees, created by interventions that never needed to happen.

A Vanishing Act on Paper Causes Real World Devastation

According to CBP, in 2024 there were approximately 2.9 million total enforcement encounters nationwide, with over 2.1 million occurring at the Southwest Land Border. 

U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) alone recorded over 1.5 million apprehensions nationwide. 

These numbers reflected a significant and sustained flow of migrants seeking to enter the United States.

Fast forward to 2025, and the narrative has radically shifted. May 2025, for instance, reported a mere 8,725 Border Patrol encounters at the southwest border – a stunning 93% decrease from May 2024 (when there were 117,905). March 2025 showed 7,181 encounters, down 95% from March 2024 (137,473). June 2025 saw only 6,070 USBP encounters at the southern border.

These are not marginal reductions; they are precipitous drops, unparalleled in recent memory. The administration attributes this to aggressive executive orders that:

• Declare a national emergency at the southern border, invoking powers to suspend entry, including for asylum seekers.
• Explicitly end “catch and release,” demanding full detention of all apprehended individuals.
• Terminate programs like the CBP One app’s asylum scheduling and various humanitarian parole initiatives.
• Direct the reinstatement and expansion of policies like the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), or “Remain in Mexico.”
• Expand expedited removal, curtailing due process for many.

On the surface, these policies appear to be achieving their stated goal of drastically reducing illegal crossings. But this is where the alarming question arises: if the sheer pressure of migration has not ceased, where have all these people gone?

Donald Trump and the Gotaways: How A Band of Pirates Are Kidnapping Innocent People

The term “gotaway” is an official CBP metric for individuals observed making an unlawful entry but who evade apprehension. This number relies on the honesty and diligence of agents to report what they don’t catch. That number is claimed to be significantly down (e.g., 90% lower in June 2025 compared to last year).

But the “gotaway” metric is compromised by the very executive orders Trump signed.

If the flow of people attempting to cross the border has, in reality, not decreased by 90-95% but remains closer to last year’s levels (i.e., millions), then the discrepancy between the actual number of crossings and the officially reported number represents a staggering population that is simply unaccounted for.

Imagine it:

1. Unrecorded Apprehensions and Informal Releases: a scenario where individuals are intercepted by border agents, but instead of being formally processed through official channels (fingerprinting, biometric data collection, entry into federal databases like the e3 Portal), they are either released directly or handed off to traffickers without a paper trail. These individuals would never appear in official apprehension statistics. On paper they will cease to exist in America.
2. Suppressed “Gotaway” Reporting: If there’s immense pressure to show border “success,” agents might be implicitly or explicitly discouraged from logging “gotaways.” If an observation of an unapprehended crossing is simply not recorded, the “gotaway” count remains artificially low, contributing to the illusion of control. If a person is captured, handed off to a trafficker, considered a gotaway that never gets reported, their disappearance is also enforced.
3. Domestic Evidence Already Seen In Florida, New York, and California: It is becoming a nearly daily occurrence that videos surface of individuals being abducted without warrants in these places, and the “Alligator Alcatraz” facility in the Everglades has been reported as a site ripe with enforced disappearances.

Such practices distort official statistics and represent a catastrophic failure of governmental responsibility, as well as a profound human rights crisis.

The Environment for Enforced Disappearances Was Built On Executive Orders

I’ve used the phrase multiple times, and included it in my piece “Obliterating Alligator Alcatraz – Before It’s Built,” but “enforced disappearance” is a concept recognized by the United Nations and “is considered to be the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.”

It should be noted that The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 20, 2006. It entered into force on December 23, 2010.

The United States? Did not sign it. Neither W. Bush nor Obama felt it was important enough for America to recognize this and here we are today, with the Trump administration taking full advantage of that fact. This should be rectified, and the United States should change its international policy immediately.

The current administration’s executive orders, while professed to be about their necessity to assert control, inadvertently and directly contributes to these enforced disappearances.

Systematic Enforced Disappearance, Creating Conditions For Slavery, Torture

• Classifying It As “Mass Deportation” Is Wrong: What the administration is doing is not a deportation scheme. This is not “cracking down on immigration.” They are abusing law enforcement in order to fund a trafficking operation that the federal government is taking advantage of and Donald Trump is personally profiting from. This linguistic trick is what keeps people distracted and ineffective to stop it.
• This Is Eroded Due Process For All: The push for rapid processing and expanded expedited removal curtails opportunities for proper vetting, identification of vulnerabilities (like trafficking indicators), and access to legal counsel. When individuals are rushed through a system with no oversight, the chances of them falling through the cracks or being exploited increase exponentially.
• “Zero Releases” Creates a Bottleneck: If the directive is truly “zero releases” into the interior, but the sheer volume of attempted crossings remains normal, the administration would have a supply of thousands or millions of people to sell or divert wherever they see fit. 
• Opaque Detention and Transfer Systems Are Creating Human Trafficking Hubs and Internment Camps: Even for those who are officially apprehended and detained, the inhumane conditions of places like Alligator Alcatraz are truly atrocious. The lack of transparency in the sprawling immigration detention system that now exists, particularly with rapid transfers between facilities (many privately run), make it impossible for families and legal advocates to locate individuals.
• Incentives for Private Detention: The business model of private detention centers, which profit on a per-bed basis, creates a powerful financial incentive for continued high detention numbers. That is a problem in Florida, as well as California. Politics aside, these governors are partnered with the federal government in these disappearances.

Investigation and Transparency Are Required

The implications of The Great Border Illusion are terrifying. If the United States federal government, even inadvertently or through the actions of rogue elements, is contributing to an environment where millions of individuals are going uncounted and ushered into modern slavery, it demands immediate and uncompromising intervention.

To policy makers and law enforcement leaders, I urge:

1. Independent, Forensic Audit of Border Data: An external, non-governmental body with full access to internal CBP and ICE records, including raw data from sensors, cameras, and agent logs, must conduct a forensic audit of encounter, apprehension, and “gotaway” statistics. This audit should cross-reference data points to identify any patterns of non-recording or miscategorization.
2. Enhanced Transparency in Detention and Transfers: Demand real-time, publicly accessible data on all individuals in immigration custody, including their location, transfer history, and legal status. Independent oversight bodies and legal counsel must have unimpeded access to all detention facilities.
3. Whistleblower Protections: Bolster protections for any federal employees or contractors who come forward with information about unauthorized or illegal activities related to border processing or the treatment of migrants.
4. Investigation into Allegations of Unofficial Releases/Passage: Launch immediate, high-level investigations into any specific allegations or anecdotal reports of individuals being intercepted and then released without official processing, or being handed over to non-official entities.
5. Strengthened Anti-Trafficking Measures at the Border: Implement comprehensive, trauma-informed screening for trafficking victims at every stage of the encounter process, coupled with robust training for all border personnel on identifying and assisting victims. Ensure safe reporting mechanisms for migrants themselves.
6. Impeachment and Forced Resignations: Donald Trump, JD Vance, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, and any other Secretaries of the cabinet who are responsible for ushering in this policy, must be impeached and/or forced to resign from their roles in government as well as be held criminally liable.

Point Blank: The Trump Administration Is Lying About Border Enforcement Being A Success

The “zero” on paper claim should not be allowed to mask a humanitarian catastrophe that Donald Trump is profiting from with his buddies off the books.

The integrity of our nation’s border operations, and indeed our commitment to human rights, depends on a thorough and transparent investigation into this.

The time for denial or silence is over.

The “uncounted” deserve to be seen, and their safety must be guaranteed.

You can count on me to fight until this battle is won.