Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, June 19, 2025

June 19, 2025 · The White House · 0:29:27

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed members of the media on June 19, 2025, carried on the White House channel, leading with the border numbers. “According to newly released numbers, last month Border Patrol saw a 93 percent decrease of illegal aliens crossing the southwest border between ports of entry from May 2024 under Joe Biden, when they encountered more than 117,000 illegal aliens,” she said. “And this particular statistic is absolutely astounding. In the month of May, under the Trump administration, zero illegal aliens were released into our country by Border Patrol. Let me say that again: not a single illegal alien was released into the interior of the United States of America last month under this administration,” as she stated the figures.

Leavitt attributed the result to the President’s termination of the prior release practice, saying immigration officers had been “wasting their finite time and resources processing dangerous illegal aliens for release into the United States,” as she characterized the prior policy, and took questions ranging across the administration’s agenda, including the U.S.-China relationship, which she described as a “very respectful and cordial relationship” between the two presidents, as she stated it.

Why it matters

This briefing is the White House’s formal presentation of the May 2025 border figures — the 93 percent decrease and the zero-releases claim stated by the Press Secretary on the record, two days before the Iran strikes reset the news agenda.

Scoreboard watch

This briefing is a scoreboard reference point: the Press Secretary’s June 19, 2025 statements of a 93 percent year-over-year decrease in Border Patrol encounters and zero releases into the interior in May 2025, each as she stated them, to be checked against the published CBP data.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, June 19, 2025” (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by the Press Secretary.