Last month, Border Patrol agents across the southern border apprehended just over 58,000 people who crossed into the country illegally, slightly up from 56,399 in July, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics published Monday.

Of the 58,000 migrants arrested, more than 36,000 were single adults, 15,500 arrived with a family member, and the remaining 6,400 were unaccompanied children.

The figures are slightly lower than in the final months of 2020 as former President Donald Trump prepared to leave office. Then, arrests averaged between 65,000 and 75,000 arrests in a month, according to Border Patrol statistics.

September will be the final month in the government’s fiscal 2024 year and is expected to conclude well below 2 million arrests in a year.

Border Patrol’s overseeing agency, CBP, has attributed several actions to the drop, as well as bilateral talks with Mexican government officials last December that have led to improved cooperation between countries in dealing with illegal immigration.

In May, CBP said it was ramping up removal flights or the return of illegal immigrants to their countries once they reach the southern border.

Then in June, President Joe Biden took executive action and implemented a new rule to turn away people at the border rather than release thousands who were crossing daily into the U.S. to await court dates years down the road.

“CBP continues to enforce the Securing the Border interim final rule and deliver strong consequences for illegal entry, and encounters between ports of entry remain at their lowest level in years,” said Troy A. Miller, the senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, said in a statement Monday.

With less than two months until the November election and immigration continuing to top voters’ concerns, Biden faces pressure to maintain the state of the border as he passes the baton to Harris as the Democratic Party’s nominee. 

Harris was tasked with addressing the root causes of the migration crisis as vice president, a role the GOP has dubbed the “border czar.”

CBP also encountered an additional 40,000 migrants who presented at ports of entry along the southern border, as well as 51,000 at ports of entry nationwide who were deemed inadmissible or were admitted under parole programs that the Biden administration set up in early 2023 to legally admit citizens of Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

The precipitous drop in illegal immigration since last December is a notable change of course for Biden, who oversaw the historic border crisis. The monthly number of arrests has slowly decreased over the past six months, dropping from 250,000 last December to 83,000 in June.

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The U.S. and Mexico crackdowns on illegal immigration have built up frustration among migrants who are looking at other ways for admission.

As recently as late July, migrants began gathering and walking as part of a “caravan” through Central America and southern Mexico, bound for the U.S.