Trump at 100 Days: Border Is 'My No. 1 Thing'; Schumer: 'I Don't Trust Trump's Numbers' (April 29, 2025)

President Donald Trump marked his 100th day back in office by naming the border as his biggest win. “Well I think either we’ve done everything, or it’s in the process of being done,” he told reporters before boarding Marine One. “For instance, the border’s in great shape – 99.9%, came out again today. 99.9. I would say that was my No. 1 thing” [1].

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wasn’t buying it. “I’ll say one thing to you. I don’t trust Trump’s numbers,” he told a reporter the same day [2]. The video above pairs the two moments from April 29, 2025. Trump’s quotes are from the White House press pool report on his remarks before he boarded Marine One for a rally in Michigan [1].

”My No. 1 Thing”

Trump spoke briefly before leaving the White House at 2:18 p.m., the pool reported. Asked about the 100-day milestone and the road ahead, he put the economy right behind the border: “The economy would be certainly right up there, and I think it’s doing great. We were losing billions and billions of dollars a day with trade, and now I have that down to a very low level, and soon we’re going to be making a lot of money” [1].

He had been making the same case all month. In an April 15 interview with Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy, Trump said: “I think the thing that people now realize is the border is 100%. It’s like literally 100%. It’s perfect now” [3]. In a primetime ABC interview the White House highlighted on April 30, he called the border “the most significant” accomplishment: “Now, it’s totally closed down … Nobody thought that could happen, and it happened quickly” [4].

Next Up: The ‘Big, Beautiful’ Bill

Trump told reporters his attention was turning to Congress. “A very important element that we’re working on now, more important than anything with the border in good shape, is the fact that we want to get, and very importantly, the big beautiful new deal. If we get that done, that’s the biggest thing,” he said. “If the Democrats blocked it, you’d have a 60% tax increase. I don’t think that’s going to happen. We have great support from Republicans” [1].

“The next period of time, I think, my biggest focus will be on Congress,” he added, calling the package potentially “the biggest bill in the history of our country in terms of tax cuts and regulation cuts, and other things” [1].

He also took a few lighter questions. Asked whom he would like to see as the next pope, he joked: “I would like to be pope. That would be my No. 1 choice.” He added that he had no preference, but “we have a cardinal out of a place called New York who’s very good” [1].

”I Don’t Trust Trump’s Numbers”

Schumer’s comment came a day after the White House released a 100-day border fact sheet. According to the fact sheet, as reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation, daily border encounters had fallen 93% since Trump returned to office, crossings were down 99.99%, and “gotaways,” migrants who evade Border Patrol, were down 95% [5]. The White House said fewer than 7,200 border encounters were recorded in March 2025, “the lowest monthly number of border encounters in recorded history,” compared with an average of nearly 160,000 a month during the Biden years [5].

Asked about the administration’s border record, Schumer would not give ground. “I’ll say one thing to you. I don’t trust Trump’s numbers,” he said [2]. The Daily Caller noted that Democrats had argued Biden had little power to fix the border and blamed Trump for opposing the bipartisan border deal [2].

What CBP’s Own Data Showed

The government’s own border agency reported the same trend in its monthly updates:

March 2025: Customs and Border Protection said it recorded “its lowest southwest border crossings in history.” Border Patrol averaged about 264 apprehensions a day nationwide, “94% lower than 4,488 per day average from March 2024” [6].
April 2025: Border Patrol recorded 8,383 apprehensions along the southwest border, “a 93% drop from the 128,895 apprehensions recorded in April 2024,” or about 279 a day, compared with 4,297 a day a year earlier [7].
Releases: CBP said “only five illegal aliens were temporarily allowed into the U.S. in April for U.S. special interest court cases,” compared with roughly 68,000 released along the southwest border in April 2024 [7].

By the Numbers

99.9%: the figure Trump cited on April 29 [1].
93%: the drop in daily border encounters in the White House’s 100-day fact sheet [5].
95%: the drop in “gotaways,” per the fact sheet [5].
8,383: southwest border apprehensions in April 2025, down from 128,895 in April 2024 [7].
5 vs. about 68,000: migrants released into the U.S. in April 2025 versus the same month a year earlier, per CBP [7].
237,565: Border Patrol apprehensions in fiscal 2025, the fewest since 1970 [8].

What Happened Next

The numbers held. DHS and CBP closed out fiscal 2025, which ran from Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025, with 237,565 Border Patrol apprehensions, the fewest since 1970’s 201,780, even though 72% of the year’s total came during the last 111 days of the Biden administration, Fox News reported [8].

The bill became law. The package Trump said would be his biggest focus passed Congress and became Public Law 119-21 on July 4, 2025, commonly known as the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, according to the IRS [9].

For how the border looked two years earlier, see Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ answer when asked, hours before Title 42 ended, what the surge had cost taxpayers.