How many immigrants entered usa southern border 2020 to 2024
Executive summary
Publicly released Border Patrol and Department of Homeland Security statistics count millions of "encounters"—events in which people are apprehended, expelled, or otherwise processed—along the U.S. southern border from 2020 through 2024: roughly 8.7 million encounters at the Southwest border since the start of fiscal year 2021, with fiscal-year totals of about 2.8–3.2 million in 2022–2024 contributing to that sum [1] [2] [3]. These figures are encounters, not unduplicated migrants, and the choice of fiscal versus calendar year changes reported totals [3].
1. What the headline numbers show: millions of encounters, concentrated 2021–2024
Official CBP-derived tallies and congressional summaries make clear that the bulk of recent activity occurred after the pandemic lull: the House Committee on Homeland Security reported more than 8.72 million CBP encounters at the Southwest border beginning with fiscal year 2021 through FY2024 [1], while Migration Policy Institute and CBP updates show fiscal-year counts of roughly 2.9 million in FY2024 and about 3.2 million in FY2023 [3], and CBP reported roughly 2.76 million in FY2022 [2].
2. Different tallies, different windows: Oct 2019–June 2024 and other aggregates
Independent compilers frame the span differently: USAFacts aggregated CBP data to report nearly 11 million unauthorized border encounters between October 2019 and June 2024, a window that includes late‑2019 and part of 2024 and therefore will not match strictly fiscal‑year series [4]; CBP's monthly releases and public dashboards provide the underlying time‑series that feed these summaries [5] [6].
3. Encounters are events, not unique people — an essential caveat
Experts and MPI emphasize a central data limit: an "encounter" is an event and the same person can be counted multiple times if detained, released, and later re‑encountered, so encounter totals overstate the number of distinct migrants who "entered" the country [3]. Congressional and media summaries sometimes conflate encounters, removals, expulsions, and releases, which complicates any straightforward tally of unique entries [1] [7].
4. Policy changes shaped totals — Title 42, proclamations, and removals
Policy shifts altered flows and counting: the pandemic-era Title 42 expulsions (March 2020–May 2023) drove millions of immediate expulsions, and subsequent Presidential proclamations and interim rules in mid‑2024 produced marked declines in encounters and increases in removals and returns in short order, according to CBP monthly releases [5] [8] [9]. CBP itself reports large numbers of removals and returns—over 700,000 in FY2024 by one CBP release—underscoring that encounters include expulsions as well as admissions [9].
5. How policy framers and researchers use the numbers — competing narratives
Political actors and committees use the same CBP datasets to make divergent claims: the House Homeland Security factsheet highlights the "startling" 8.72 million Southwest border encounters since FY2021 to argue a crisis [1], while research centers and fact‑checkers stress nuance—seasonality, gotaways, repeat encounters, and policy impacts—to caution against simple interpretations of large totals [4] [7]. Media outlets and think tanks also report monthly swings (for example, sharp declines in parts of 2024) that reflect enforcement and policy shifts rather than a single static trend [10] [6].
6. Bottom line answer and reporting limits
A direct answer using available government‑based reporting: roughly 8.7 million recorded encounters at the Southwest land border from the start of FY2021 through FY2024, and broader aggregations (Oct 2019–June 2024) reach nearly 11 million total encounters—while fiscal‑year subtotals were roughly 2.8–3.2 million in individual recent years such as FY2022–FY2024 [1] [2] [3] [4]. These figures reflect encounters rather than distinct individuals; publicly available sources do not provide a precise unduplicated count of unique migrants who "entered" the United States during 2020–2024 [3].