President Trump took the adage about finding yourself in a hole and stopping digging to heart when it comes to illegal immigration, where his dramatic improvements at the southern border have resulted in the first sustained decrease in the immigration court backlog in nearly two decades.

In just over six months, Trump pared the Biden-era backlog of more than 4.2 million pending cases before immigration judges to 3.8 million, The Washington Times reported.

Some of the drop is due to better efficiency in the immigration courts, officially known as the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

However, a senior Justice Department official said, “The real change has been the drop in new cases.”

“That is entirely due to President Trump’s policies securing the border,” the official told The Washington Times. “It’s not a novel concept: Enforcing the law, rather than ignoring it, really does work to reduce illegal immigration and the backlog.”

Under President Biden, the government averaged nearly 150,000 new cases each month while judges completed fewer than 60,000.

Since January, the courts have averaged just 29,000 new cases monthly and completed more than 65,000.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review data is another yardstick of Trump’s impact on immigration and the decisions of would-be illegal immigrants, who for the first time in modern history are no longer attempting to breach the border in any significant number.

The Department of Homeland Security said Border Patrol agents recorded 116 arrests along the 1,954-mile southern border one day last month.

In December 2023, at the peak of the Biden border surge, agents averaged more than 8,050 daily arrests.

Andrew “Art” Arthur, a former immigration judge, said the backlog reduction is more than just a statistic.

It means that newcomers’ cases are heard sooner, those with valid claims get protection faster, and those with bogus cases can face deportation.

“That message reverberates in their home countries, discouraging would-be migrants from attempting the journey,” Arthur said.

The previous immigration backlog was so large that new arrivals were confident their cases would not be heard for years, giving them time to work and put down roots before the U.S. ever considered deporting them.

Social media networks buzzed with stories of successful crossings, encouraging even more people to attempt the journey.

All that has now been reversed, Arthur said. “Now that the backlog has come down, [immigration judges] are in a better position to issue more decisions,” he said. “The system has credibility again.”

Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, said the humanitarian cost of reaching this point has been high.

Under Trump’s border emergency, migrants are blocked from entering and those who do cross are increasingly likely to face criminal prosecutions for illegal entry or reentry.

“They never get a chance to ask for asylum, which means no immigration proceeding is opened,” Orozco said.

Trump’s administration has also boosted detention capacity.

Orozco said that means illegal immigrants who once were released to await court dates years in the future are now held and put in front of judges in a matter of weeks. Some are simply deciding not to move forward with their cases, he said.

If Homeland Security is the “law,” the Justice Department’s immigration courts are the “order,” delivering consequences to those in the U.S. without authorization.

Unlike criminal courts, where guilt or innocence is decided, immigration judges determine admissibility. The consequence isn’t prison but an order of deportation.

As the court backlog grew, it became a de facto amnesty for many illegal immigrants.

Toward the end of the Obama years, the backlog topped 750,000 cases. It doubled during Trump’s first term to more than 1.5 million.

The numbers then spiraled out of control under Biden, with cases surging past 4 million. As of Jan. 20, the immigration courts had 4,173,595 cases, said the Times.