Last Updated Jan 20th, 2020 at 5:33 pm

The rate at which illegal immigrants are crossing the U.S. border from Mexico has taken a sharp dive as the Trump administration continues to extend its border patrol policy.

Around this time last year, the Trump administration instituted the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), which require asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court hearings.

Although arrests in the Border Patrol's Yuma sector in Arizona hit 14,000 in May, that number plummeted 94 percent to less than 800 in October and have remained steady ever since, according to the Associated Press.

Yuma Border Patrol chief Anthony Porvaznik said that the MPP has made a significant impact in deterring immigrants from crossing the border illegally:

"Their whole goal was to be released into the United States, and once that was taken off the shelf for them, and they couldn't be released into the United States anymore, then that really diminished the amount of traffic that came through here."

The neighboring Tuscon sector saw arrests increase every month from August to December, which Porvaznik credits to the lack of the MPP until three months ago.