What are the facts about immigration during the Biden administration

1. Policy reversals and an activist first year

On day one and through early executive orders the administration moved to rescind several Trump-era measures and set new enforcement priorities, launching scores of immigration actions designed to “reset” enforcement and expand refugee and humanitarian programs ^{[6] [1] [2]}. Those actions included pausing some deportations initially, suspending new enrollments in the Remain in Mexico program, reinstating certain protections such as DED for Liberians, and endorsing major legislative proposals like the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021—steps framed as both humanitarian and systemic modernization efforts ^{[7] [8] [1] [9]}.

2. Record border encounters and complex causes

The southern border experienced historic volumes of migrant encounters: government data and independent analysts report millions of encounters during Biden’s term—estimates include roughly 6.3 million by late 2024 and 8.6 million encounters through October 2024 in related counts, with repeat crossers contributing to totals—driven by economic, pandemic, and regional instability factors as well as policy expectations ^{[5] [3] [4]}. Those large flows overwhelmed processing capacity and became the political focal point, even as experts note the uptick was multiply determined rather than the product of a single administration decision ^[4].

3. Enforcement priorities, deportations, and operational shifts

The administration issued new DHS guidance in 2021–2022 that reprioritized enforcement toward national-security, border-security, and public-safety threats and urged discretion on nonviolent cases, and ICE issued related prosecutorial guidance ^[10]. Despite those stated priorities, removals and enforcement continued: the administration carried out roughly comparable totals of deportations over FY2021–FY2024 as prior periods, and critics argue that policy memos curtailed ICE’s reach while supporters say resources were targeted more effectively ^{[3] [10]}.

4. Humanitarian expansions: refugees, TPS, and family reunifications

Biden raised the refugee admissions cap early in his term, expanded Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for nationals such as Venezuela and Myanmar, restored or extended Deferred Enforced Departure for certain groups, and created or promoted pathways for family reunification and humanitarian parole in specific instances ^{[1] [11] [8]}. These moves were presented as reversing restrictive Trump-era limits and addressing crises in sending countries, though the political and operational capacity to scale these programs varied over time ^{[1] [11]}.

5. Legal immigration, visas, and administrative bottlenecks

Legal immigration recovered from COVID-era lows, with record visa issuances and large numbers of naturalizations reported between FY2021 and FY2024, yet USCIS backlogs and processing delays grew as filings mounted ^[3]. High-skilled programs like H‑1B remained in flux: some Trump-era labor rules were not fully implemented or were rescinded, courts blocked parts of regulatory changes, and policy proposals affecting prevailing wages and public-charge standards continued to shift under legal and administrative pressure ^{[12] [11]}.

6. Politics, narratives, and accountability

Border numbers became the dominant political frame: congressional hearings and conservative critiques portrayed the administration as having “open-border” policies and misallocated funds to NGOs or sanctuary jurisdictions, while migration experts and advocates emphasized structural causes, international cooperation initiatives, and the administration’s heavy use of executive tools ^{[13] [5] [2]}. Both sides advanced partisan narratives—critics highlighting operational failures and proponents pointing to expanded legal pathways and higher naturalizations—so evaluating outcomes requires separating political messaging from the empirical record ^{[13] [3]}.

7. Bottom line: an active agenda with mixed operational outcomes

Factually, the Biden presidency was the most active on immigration by executive action, reversed multiple Trump-era restrictions, expanded certain humanitarian protections, and oversaw record legal admissions and naturalizations while also facing unprecedented border encounter totals and growing administrative backlogs; judgments on success therefore depend on which goals—humanitarian expansion, border control, legal-system modernization, or enforcement efficiency—are weighted most heavily ^{[2] [1] [3] [4]}. Where reporting is silent in these sources, further empirical work is required rather than assumption.