25 million people came in during the Biden years, the Biden disasters. And we stopped that. We stopped it down to zero. Hard to believe, but the numbers come out every month. They come out zero, zero, zero. People don't come anymore because they know they're not going to get through. So, we had caravans of 10, 15, 20, 25,000 people coming up from countries. And remember, I know these people. I know the leaders of the countries are smart and they're cunning and they're street wise and they would put their people that were from prisons in there. They would put their murderers in there. They'd put a lot of bad people and they'd also put people that just didn't work. They'd put all of their welfare recipients in there. They'd send them into our country. And all of that stopped and many of those people are now brought back. Many of the murderers, 11,888 were murderers. I say it all the time. 50% of them were, they murdered more than one person, two, three, four. It's one, seven people murdered into our country. They let them into our country. It's a sin that should never be forgotten. So, it's a much different country right now. We're respected by everybody. Everybody in the world respects. We just got back from China, as you know, some of you were with us. And President Xi was great. And now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're the most successful country in the world. So, this is very important what you're doing and I'd like to have Will just say a few words about it specifically, please.
Yes, sir. As Rodney and Councilman Navarro said, this is an executive order on strengthening customs enforcement using new technologies and new approaches. The idea here is to ensure that importers of record, other people moving goods across our border are accurately reporting what they're bringing in, that contraband, that illegal goods aren't being brought across the border, and that goods being brought in are being accurately accounted for for purposes of duties and tariffs and all of the other things we require of importers of record. But this executive order will launch a series of bold new steps that I think we as an administration believe will result in the tightest, most controlled border in American history following on obviously your success in closing the southern border and stopping the scourge of illegal immigration into the country as well, sir.
So, Peter, what kind of money do you think this involves in terms of savings to our country?
I will guarantee you the first year will be at least 15 billion, next year 25, and out there there's 80 to 100 billion that the tariff evaders are doing. Plus, sir, we're going to stop more of the fentanyl coming in, and we're going to crack down on counterfeits. This is good for America. This is good for the people that elected you. It's good for the country.
And we have fentanyl coming in 59% less. Cut it by a number that nobody thought was even possible. We're going to get it a lot lower than that, but we have it and we did this in a very short period of time.
This is going to be a great one, sir.
You didn't have the same maker for us, and CBP has been doing a really great job innovating on this, sir.
You've done a fantastic job. Thank you.
Appreciate it, sir. Okay, we'll stand one. Oh, that's a good one. I said ICE one. Okay, what else you have?
This is another executive order on reforms to the federal workforce, sir. Currently, with respect to many policy-making positions in the departments and agencies across government, we lack the ability because of existing personnel rules to effectively discipline or promote people who are in policy-making roles. This executive order follows on a number of previous executive orders. The end goal is making the federal workforce more accountable and ensuring that people, particularly in policy-making roles, aren't unaccountable to the wishes of the administration.
And the reason for this was what? Who's idea was that?
James Sherk, who's here from the Domestic Policy Council can speak to that.
To say something? Come on. You did a great job on this.
Thank you, sir. It's been a long-standing problem that is almost impossible to fire a federal employee even in cases of serious misconduct. And as a result, if you have employees who are trying to undermine the wishes of the American people by pushing their own agenda or just incompetent at what they're doing, agencies have a long-standing difficult time getting rid of them. And that's a particular problem if you're in a senior policy-influencing role where you're controlling the policies of an entire agency. What this does is basically treats those employees like private sector workers. They can be hired on the basis of merit and competence, but if they're messing up, then they can be removed quickly rather than taking a year or longer to get rid of them.
That's great. And you were very much involved in this. This guy's a natural casting. He's like perfectly cast if I'm being honest. You couldn't have done that any better. Were you nervous?
A little. Thank you, sir.
Would anybody else like to say anything? What about either one? What about you? Come on over here. Come on. Can you talk about it? You don't have to. Thank you very much. Great job. Go ahead, please.
Yeah, this customs reform EO is a long time coming for us. It helps us solve problems that have plagued the customs system for many years. We've had a system where people have basically been able to hide behind shell companies. They move from one to the next. And then we can't go after them. The ZEO really enables us to crack down and hold people accountable.
It's so important. I know you took it so seriously. See how serious they are? I mean, there's a love of the country. This isn't like normal stuff. These are the smartest people in the world. They can do anything they want. They can have any job and they love this country. They just want to be here. And they hate what you saw and you fixed it. Thank you very much. All of you. Anybody else? Anybody? Only if you want. I'm not going to call anybody. Anybody? You don't have to. They covered you well, right? I don't know if you could do any better. Thank you very much. It's a great job, fellas. It's a big one. Okay. Thank you. Pulitzer Prize winner over there. I got the great Pulitzer Prize winner. Okay. Thank you very much. It's great.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Do you have any questions?
Mr. President, given Iran's attacks on Kuwait, this latest attack on Kuwait, is the ceasefire with Iran still on?
Well, you know, there's a reason for everything. And we hit them pretty hard the night before and actually last night. And when it was explained to me, I said, 'All right, so we'll do that.' But we've been hitting them pretty hard a little bit. So, there is a reason for certain things and there's usually a reason that they were slightly provoked because we took a strong action for a different reason. So, they were reciprocating everything. I think the negotiation itself has gone very well, actually. Very well. It could happen. I mean, if it happens, and it might not happen, you know, who knows. But if it happens, it could happen like over the weekend.
