The El Paso section of the southwest border has become the busiest in the nation, while overall border crossings continue to decline.
The El Paso sector, which runs from Hudspeth County, Texas, to the New Mexico-Arizona state boundary, became the busiest sector on the southwest border in February, according to the most recent Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, with 2,110 interactions documented.
Overall, CBP data indicates 8,347 interactions along the southwest border in February, a staggering 94.1% decrease from the same month last year, when 124,215 encounters were reported.
While the El Paso sector took the crown for the busiest, the just over 2,000 encounters for the area still represented a significant year-over-year drop from the numbers recorded during February of last year, when the sector had 23,919 encounters. The February numbers in El Paso also represented a drop from last month, with the sector recording 4,870 encounters in January 2025.
El Paso replaced the San Diego sector as the busiest on the southwest border in February, with San Diego recording just 1,650 encounters last month, a decline of 94.8% from the year before. The numbers for San Diego were also a dramatic drop from those recorded just last month, when the sector recorded 6,390 encounters.
CBP has nine sectors along the southwest border, stretching from the coast of California to Texas and the Gulf of America. Multiple border sectors, notably the El Centro sector in California’s Imperial Valley and the Big Bend sector in West Texas, had less than 200 total interactions in February.
The El Centro sector had the fewest interactions in February, with CBP statistics indicating just 102, a 91.6% decrease from the same period previous year. The Big Ben area wasn’t far behind, with just 165 interactions in February, a 71% decrease from the same month last year.
