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LA Times Admits: Border Locked, Migrants Blocked

Apr 01, 2025

LA Times Admits: Border Locked, Migrants Blocked

The Los Angeles Times dropped a piece on March 30, 2025, titled “With few migrants arriving at California-Mexico border, nonprofits, Border Patrol pivot,” and it’s a stark snapshot of what happens when policy actually bites. The story’s simple: the illegal immigrant wave crashing into California’s border has dwindled to a trickle. San Diego’s Border Patrol sector, once a chaotic free-for-all with 1,200 arrests a day last April, is now clocking 30 to 40. That’s not a border crisis; that’s a slow Tuesday. The reason? Trump’s back in the game, and he’s brought the hammer. Six miles of concertina wire, 750 U.S. troops, Mexico’s 10,000 National Guard doing tandem patrols, and a prosecution rate that’s got teeth. The message is clear: don’t come. And they’re not.

The nonprofits are reeling. The American Friends Service Committee—think Quaker Oats and good intentions—shuttered their Whiskey 8 aid station in San Ysidro because the migrants they were ready to swaddle in blankets and platitudes just aren’t showing up. Instead, they’re redirecting their energy to immigrants already here, sweating deportation, or those bottlenecked in southern Mexico, stuck in limbo. It’s a pivot born of necessity, but it’s also a tacit admission: the border’s locked down, and their old playbook’s obsolete.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Trump’s crackdown has flipped the script. With legal asylum routes choked off, the desperate don’t just vanish; they adapt. Some are dying in the Otay Mountain wilderness, a brutal reminder that human will doesn’t bend to barbed wire. Others might soon try their luck by sea—Border Patrol’s already bracing for it. Close one door, and another creaks open. It’s not a flaw in the system; it is the system.

The article’s got a whiff of hand-wringing—advocates fretting about “dangerous crossings” like it’s a revelation—but let’s be real: this was always the trade-off. You want a secure border? You get razor wire and dead-end trails. You want open arms? You get chaos and 1,200-a-day pileups. Pick your poison. Trump picked his, and the numbers don’t lie—it’s working. The nonprofits pivoting to deportation defense and the Border Patrol eyeing the coastline aren’t signs of failure; they’re the ecosystem adjusting to a new reality.

What’s missing from the Times’ take is the bigger picture. This isn’t just about California or even the U.S. Mexico’s playing ball because they’ve got their own skin in the game—10,000 troops don’t march for free. And the migrants? They’re not pawns; they’re people making hard calls in a world that doesn’t care. Trump’s policy is a sledgehammer, not a scalpel, but it’s doing what it promised. The question is what comes next—because a quiet border today doesn’t mean a solved problem tomorrow.