During his February 2026 State of the Union address, while praising "the strongest and most secure border in American history," U.S. President Donald Trump said (archived), "In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States."
"Illegal aliens" is a term that the Trump administration uses to describe immigrants without legal status in the U.S.
Government agencies, news organizations, think tanks and other social media users soon spread Trump's claim across Facebook (archived), X (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), and Bluesky (archived).
The president's statement appeared to conflate terminology from Department of Homeland Security statistics. According to the DHS, the Border Patrol had not released any immigrants on parole without legal status into the U.S. in the nine months spanning May 2025 to January 2026 (archived, archived, archived).
Release on parole is not the same as gaining admission (archived), which people can only do if they can prove they have legal status in the U.S. Admitting "illegal aliens" is technically not possible, as a person must show they have legal status in order to gain admission.
While it appeared true that U.S. border authorities had not released any immigrants without legal status into the U.S. between May 2025 and January 2026, Trump said "admitted" during his speech. Therefore, we could not apply a rating Trump's exact claim.
Joe Biden let millions of criminal illegal aliens pour across our Southern Border and into American communities. […] In a short period of time, President Trump has totally secured the border and prevented any illegal aliens from entering the country. Promises made, promises kept.
Parsing Trump's claim
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol released zero immigrants without legal status on parole into the U.S. in the nine months spanning May 2025 to January 2026. The CBP specified in some news releases from that period that "zero releases" referred specifically to parole releases.
Snopes could not independently verify the DHS' claim that it made zero parole releases for immigrants without legal status between May 2025 and January 2026. According to a congressional report from September 2025, data on immigration parole was "limited."
In the U.S., the secretary of Homeland Security may grant immigrants parole to allow them to enter the country and stay while they seek admission. If the DHS or its agencies grant a person parole, that does not mean they have admitted them to the U.S.
Admission means legal entry and applies only to immigrants who can prove they have the right to enter or reside in the U.S. at the time they attempt to do so.
If the DHS and its agencies were not releasing people without legal status into the U.S. on parole, that meant it was either detaining or deporting them. According to CBP figures, the agency made 4,997 "apprehensions," meaning arrests or detainments, at U.S. borders in January 2026.
The Trump administration has moved to end parole programs. Trump signed an executive order (archived) calling for the end of categorical parole programs (programs designed for a specific group of people) at the start of his second administration. In May 2025, the same month the nine-month zero-release streak began, the Supreme Court allowed (archived) Trump to end a categorical parole program for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
In October 2025, four months after the zero-release streak began, the DHS announced (archived) it would impose a $1,000 fee for parole, in a move likely to disincentivize immigrants from seeking it.
Fewer encounters at border
Though Trump did not mention it in his State of the Union address, encounters (archived) — meaning interactions between immigrants and U.S. border authorities that resulted in the refusal of access into the U.S. — were dramatically reduced between Trump's and Biden's terms.
For example, in January 2024 during the Biden administration, the Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations counted 242,530 encounters, according to the CBP database. In January 2025, when Trump came back into office, the CBP counted 81,479 such encounters.
In January 2026, that number was down to 34,626. "Encounters" count events, not people, meaning if the same person attempted to cross the U.S. border twice they would be counted twice in the tally. Regardless, the drastic decrease suggested significantly fewer people were attempting to enter the U.S. legally at border crossings in 2025 than preceding years.
It was unclear at the time of this writing how many people entered the U.S. without legal status or parole by, for example, crossing between crossing points or otherwise evading border authorities.