Q&A – The Total Number of Border Crossers & Illegal Immigrant Population - Driven By Braman Motorcars
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Today’s Entry: Why can we not have an official number of people that entered the United States at border crossings and additional crossings at open border? The open border is a speculative number, but where they came in and said I want asylum, they know how many came across.
Bottom Line: Actually, we do have that information available, and I’m happy to break it down for you. Due to monthly reporting totals from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the use of technology to detect “gotaways”, we have highly accurate estimates of total activity into this country. To the extent that you’re looking for official reporting you might not have found, much of the federal government’s “official” reporting is done on an annualized basis.
The federal government’s fiscal year runs from October 1st through September 30th, which can lead to a bit of wonkiness in the timing of reporting. The final reporting for what transpired by the Biden administration won’t be in until the end of the current year in September. With that said, let’s look at what we know based on monthly reported data starting with the largest category of attempted migration during the Biden administration - border crossers/asylum seekers.
Border Encounters and Releases:
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported approximately 10.3 million encounters with migrants at U.S. borders (primarily the southwest border) from February 2021 to September 2024. These encounters include both apprehensions of migrants crossing illegally between ports of entry and individuals processed at ports of entry, some of whom sought asylum.
- Based on monthly reporting in the current fiscal year, an additional 473,000 border crossers were processed between last October and January 20th of this year.
- 10.8 million total border encounters
Parole Programs:
- CBP One App: About 904,500 migrants used this app to schedule appointments at ports of entry for processing, many seeking asylum.
- CHNV Parole Program: Approximately 531,670 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela were allowed entry via domestic commercial flights after crossing the border or under sponsorship programs.
- Uniting for Ukraine and Other Programs: Over 176,000 Ukrainians and smaller numbers from other countries (e.g., Afghans) were paroled under humanitarian programs.
- 1.4 million total paroled
Gotaways (evaded authorities):
- 1.9 to 2 million "gotaways" (illegal immigrants who evaded border apprehension)
- These figures are observational estimates based on cameras, sensors, and agent reports, so they are less precise.
The total estimated entrants under the Biden administration through all methods: 14.2 million. Preceding the Biden administration there were an estimated 11.4 million unauthorized aliens within the United States. Effectively the Biden administration more doubled that population as 97% of asylum seekers granted entry into the United States have proven to have lacked legitimate asylum claims as determined in the courts – a process that has taken up to seven years to resolve given immigration court backlogs.
So, there you go. Inside of four years of the Biden administration we added more illegal immigrants, oh wait, mostly “asylum seekers”, as we’d had in this country preceding his presidency.