Deterrence, the Key to Border Security, Is Back
Decoding DOJ’s border prosecution stats
By Andrew R. Arthur on July 31, 2025
Deterrence is the key to border security, and Congress gave DHS four main tools to deter would-be migrants from entering illegally: fencing and other border impediments; detention (mandated for illegal migrants at the borders and ports); deportation; and prosecutions for illegal entry. The last is most effective, and DOJ publishes monthly statistics showing how many aliens it has prosecuted for “improper entry” and reentry under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Here’s how to decode those stats; but cutting to the chase, the Southwest border in New Mexico now appears to be the destination of last resort for the most intrepid of illicit entrants.
Section 275 of the INA
One of the most popular tropes you’ll hear in the media and from opponents of the president’s immigration policies is that there’s nothing “illegal” about being an illegal alien. Removal hearings are civil, not criminal, in nature and therefore illegal presence is roughly akin to allowing your parking meter to expire without putting more change in the meter or moving your car.
Removal proceedings are a civil process, which is why alien respondents in immigration court are not eligible for paid counsel at government expense. But entering illegally is a crime, and depending on how many times you’ve done it, a serious one.
Once the Biden administration broke with all its predecessors and ditched deterrence, nothing could control the migrant wave except renewed deterrence.
Section 275 of the INA, captioned “improper entry”, actually includes three separate offenses.
Under section 275(a)(1), it’s a crime for an alien to enter or attempt to enter “at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers”. Section 275(a)(2) makes it a federal offense to “elude examination or inspection by immigration officers”. And section 275(a)(3) includes a fraud element, criminalizing any attempt to enter the United States “by a willfully false or misleading representation” or by willfully concealing “a material fact”.
Section 275(a)(1) is the easiest to charge and given that most crimes in this country are prosecuted at the state and local level, it’s also one of the most prosecuted of federal crimes.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Deterrence-Key-Border-Security-Back-0
