Fact check: What data show about GOP NC Senate candidate’s ‘zero’ immigration claim
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that applause drowned out a portion of Michael Whatley’s quote. The full quote was “Just last month, they announced for the third month in a row zero illegal aliens have come across our border and were released into our country.”
North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley claimed during a Wednesday speech no undocumented immigrants have crossed the U.S. border and been released for three months in 2025. But federal data show thousands of encounters on the southern border.
Whatley touted the Trump administration’s immigration policies while speaking at an appearance by Vice President JD Vance in Concord.
“Just last month, they announced for the third month in a row zero illegal aliens have come across our border,” the former chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and Republican National Committee said.
Whatley’s campaign responded to a request for comment from the Observer after publication of this story saying the end of his statement at Wednesday’s event was drowned out by applause and that his full comment captured by TV microphones was “zero illegal aliens have come across our border and were released into our country.”
The campaign cited a September news release from Customs and Border Protection reporting “zero parole releases” in August for a fourth straight month. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services defines parole as a “discretionary decision that allows inadmissible aliens to leave an inspection facility freely so that, although they are not admitted to the United States, they are permitted to be physically present in the United States.”
“Parole is granted on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. Parole is not an ‘admission’ or ‘entry,’” the agency says.
The White House issued a statement in August announcing “another month of record low illegal crossings at the southern border.” That same statement said 4,598 undocumented immigrants were arrested by Border Patrol in July, “an average of just 148 illegal crossings every day.”
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol data also show a decrease in encounters with people trying to cross the southern border unlawfully in recent months compared to the same period in 2024.
The agency reported 9,740 “enforcement encounters” in August, following 7,824 in July and 9,302 in June. That includes people Border Patrol finds at “ports of entry” as well as other spots it patrols along the nation’s southern border.
“The numbers are pretty low, especially compared to last year at this time. But it’s definitely not zero,” Laura Collins, who specializes in immigration issues as director of the George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative, told The Charlotte Observer.
When encounters at the border are down, Collins said, “it does free up law enforcement at the border to find” people trying to enter the country secretly. But, “not every group is going to get caught.”
“It’s really difficult to tell,” Collins said, exactly what’s driving down encounters at the border compared to recent years.
Potential factors could include a “dampening effect” from the U.S. letting few asylum cases proceed and increasing removals of immigrants, according to Collins. People thinking about trying to enter the U.S. may also be deterred by family members already in the country telling them about increased immigration enforcement and the Trump administration’s use of social media to promote its enforcement.
The United States’ “robust economy and job opportunities” are a major draw for people trying to enter the country, so a hypothetical drop to no one trying to cross the border could “indicate a bigger problem,” Collins said.
“I don’t think I want to see what a United States would look like that would have no one attempting to come,” she said. “Because I think that would be a situation where that very elusive idea of the American dream, that romantic notion, doesn’t exist for folks anymore. We want to be a destination. We want people to come legally through established pathways.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Fact check: What data show about GOP NC Senate candidate’s ‘zero’ immigration claim."
