(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump touted a list of border security measures he’s implemented in his first month in office before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.

“Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history – and we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded,” he said.

In February, illegal border crossings were the lowest in recorded U.S. history, The Center Square reported.

This was after Trump issued multiple executive orders to secure U.S. borders, including declaring an invasion, a national emergency at both the southwest and northern borders, and directed the U.S. military to assist with apprehensions and deportations, The Center Square reported.

“Twenty-one million people poured into the United States” under the Biden administration, Trump said. “Many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world.” They illegally entered the U.S. “because of Joe Biden’s insane and very dangerous open border policies. They are now totally embedded in our country, but we are getting them out and getting them out fast.”

In Trump’s first month in office, more than 20,000 illegal foreign nationals were arrested, a 627% increase in monthly arrests compared to 33,000 at large arrests in all of last year, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. Overall, total removals of illegal foreign nationals exceeds 50,000, including some of the most violent offenders, according to DHS.

Trump cited examples of violent criminal illegal border crossers killing Americans, including University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, and 12-year-old Houstonian, Jocelyn Nungaray, whose angel mothers were in attendance.

Trump also countered a narrative of the previous administration that “we needed new legislation to secure the border. It turned out that all we really needed was a new president,” he said. The bill Democrats touted would have codified existing Biden administration policies, worsening the border crisis, The Center Square reported.

Trump also criticized the Biden administration for opening the U.S. borders by flying illegal foreign nationals into the country “to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities … like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, which buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody’s ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed.”

By implementing a mass deportation effort, he said his administration was undergoing “the great liberation of America.”

Trump also highlighted his decision to designate drug cartels and violent transnational criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, saying, “They are now officially in the same category as ISIS. Countless thousands of these terrorists were welcomed into the U.S. by the Biden administration but now every last one will be rounded up and forcibly removed from our country, or if they’re too dangerous, put in jails standing trial in this country. Because we don’t want them to come back, ever.”

He also praised former Border Patrol agent Roberto Ortiz, who was fired upon by cartel members in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, saying, “he leapt into action, returning fire and providing crucial seconds for his fellow agent to seek safe safety.”

The U.S.-Mexico border, which was dominated by Mexican cartels under the Biden administration, “pose a grave threat to our national security … and are waging war in America,” he said. “It’s time for America to wage war on the cartels, which we are doing.”

Trump also highlighted Mexican authorities transferring 29 cartel leaders to the U.S. “That has never happened before,” he said. However, Mexican and Canadian officials can “do much more,” he said, to stop fentanyl and drugs from pouring into the U.S., which is why he was holding steadfast on imposing tariffs.

Trump said he submitted a detailed border security funding request to Congress. It lays out “exactly how we will eliminate these threats to protect our homeland and complete the largest deportation operation in American history,” he said, calling on Congress to pass it so he can sign it into law.

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump Tuesday night told the story of a North Carolina high school athlete who was severely injured by a transgender male athlete when he hit a volleyball into her face so hard it caused brain damage.

The young girl, Payton McNabb, was present as Trump’s guest at his address to a joint session of Congress.

“Payton, from now on, schools will kick the men off the girls team or they will lose all federal funding,” Trump said, calling his policies a “common sense revolution.”

Watch below:

(The Center Square) – Tuition for out of state undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill was increased during Thursday’s meeting of the Board of Governors.

Costs remain the same for in-state students in the entire university system. It marked the ninth straight year without a tuition increase for in-state undergraduate students, Andy Wallace, spokesman for the university system, told The Center Square.

“UNC System is the only system in the country able to say that,” Wallace said.

The increases approved Thursday will bring the out-of-state tuition at Chapel Hill to $43,152. The revenue from the increase would be used for faculty and staff retention, academic support, campus safety, and to “offset the inflationary impacts on contracted services,” according to the university system.

Chapel Hill received 51,181 first-year applications from out-of-state residents for admission in the fall of 2024, according to the university system.

Only 18% of first-year slots at Chapel Hill are available for out-of-state and international students, leaving 82% for in-state residents.

The university system governing board also kept tuition the same – $500 per semester – at Elizabeth City State University, Fayetteville State University, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, and Western Carolina University in the NC Promise program.

The NC Promise Program has “increased educational access, reduced student debt, and grown the state’s economy,” the university system says on its website.

The percentage of bachelor’s degree students in the UNC System with federal loan debt at graduation is actually dropping, Wallace added. It has gone from 61.2% in 2018-19 to 49.9% in 2023-24, the spokesman said.

In their request for tuition increases this year for out of state students and some in-state graduate students, North Carolina universities cited inflation as a factor.

Appalachian State, for example, was approved Thursday for a 3% increase for both in- and out-of-state graduate students and all out-of-state undergraduates.

“Revenues resulting from this increase will be used to offset the impacts of inflation on supplies, materials, and services, to invest in classroom equipment and technology, and to provide for new faculty and academic advisor positions to support the growing student population at the Boone and Hickory campuses,” a university system document states.