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Fact check: Did 10M immigrants illegally cross the border during the Biden presidency
Executive Summary
The claim that “10 million immigrants illegally crossed the border during the Biden presidency” is overstated and imprecise: available analyses show large totals of migrant encounters, apprehensions, paroles and deportations in the Biden years, but they do not uniformly support a clean figure of 10 million illegal border crossings specifically [1] [2] [3]. Different sources measure different things — parole admissions, Border Patrol apprehensions, “gotaways,” and nationwide encounters — and when assembled they point to several million migrants interacting with U.S. border and immigration systems under Biden, but not a single authoritative, exclusive tally confirming exactly 10 million illegal crossings [4] [5] [3].
1. Numbers that look similar but mean very different things — why the 10 million claim emerged
Multiple reports cite totals in the millions during the Biden years, and these headline numbers fuel the 10 million assertion; for example, a House committee counted more than 10.3 million nationwide encounters under the Biden-Harris administration, which is often presented as a proxy for unauthorized entries but actually includes varied encounter types and does not equal confirmed illegal crossings [1]. Similarly, the Migration Policy Institute reported roughly 5.8 million parole or entry approvals for asylum seekers and others — a large number but focused on legal parole mechanisms rather than clandestine border crossings, so conflating these statistics with illegal crossings produces a misleading impression [2]. The difference between encounters, paroles, apprehensions and “gotaways” is critical to unpacking any 10 million claim [5] [2].
2. What Border Patrol apprehension and “gotaway” counts show
Border Patrol-confirmed illegal crossing attempts and “gotaway” estimates are closer to the operational measure people mean by “illegal crossings,” and those figures fall below a simple 10 million total in the cited analyses. One synthesis notes more than 7.2 million confirmed illegal attempts at the US-Mexico border between January 2021 and January 2024, excluding gotaways; another source reports over 7.8 million illegal border crossings plus at least 1.5 million gotaways since Biden took office — together approaching but not necessarily equaling 10 million, and still subject to differences in counting periods and methods [3] [5]. These operational figures are large and reflect sustained high flows, but they do not permit a single definitive 10 million illegal-crossing statement without additional methodological clarity [3] [5].
3. Why parole and migration inflows complicate the tally
Independent analyses emphasize that parole policies and migration flows under the Biden administration introduced large legal pathways and administrative admissions that boost overall arrival numbers without representing illegal crossings. The Migration Policy Institute’s December 2024 report showing 5.8 million paroled or otherwise admitted migrants demonstrates that many entrants were processed through official channels; counting those alongside unauthorized crossings without distinction inflates the appearance of illicit entries [2]. The New York Times’ estimate of net migration possibly topping 8 million from 2021–2023 highlights total inflows but does not disaggregate legal migration mechanisms from unauthorized crossings, thus complicating any claim framed strictly as “illegal” entries [4].
4. Deportations, enforcement activity, and the back-and-forth narrative
Enforcement statistics show substantial removals too: one report notes over 271,000 deportations in a recent fiscal year under Biden, surpassing a prior Trump-era annual number — a reminder that large flows were met with significant enforcement responses [6]. Other sources from oversight committees emphasize high total encounter counts and characterize the situation as a border crisis, whereas some media accounts point to recent declines in monthly apprehensions and assert that illegal crossings were trending down as of late 2024 — indicating mixed trends over time rather than a single cumulative truth [1] [7]. These differing emphases reflect divergent framings: crisis versus containment, each relying on different measures [6] [7].
5. What we can reliably say and where uncertainty remains
The safest, evidence-based conclusion from the provided analyses is that millions of migrants engaged with U.S. border and immigration systems during the Biden presidency across a variety of categories (parole, apprehension, “gotaways,” encounters, and net migration), but there is no single authoritative source in the provided materials that proves exactly 10 million illegal border crossings as defined narrowly by confirmed unlawful entries [1] [2] [3]. The variation in counting methods, overlapping categories, and different reporting periods produces plausible cumulative totals approaching or exceeding 10 million depending on which measures are combined — but those combinations mix legal and illegal pathways and thus do not establish the specific claim as stated [4] [5].
6. Why precise language matters for public understanding and policy
Claiming a round number like 10 million without specifying the metric — whether it is nationwide encounters, confirmed apprehensions plus gotaways, parole admissions, or net migration — conflates distinct administrative realities and can mislead public debate. Policymakers and journalists must distinguish legal admissions from unauthorized crossings, single encounters from unique individuals, and confirmed apprehensions from estimates of evasion to produce accurate assessments; the provided analyses demonstrate repeated confusion when those distinctions are collapsed [2] [1] [3]. Accurate public understanding requires transparent methodology and careful labeling of data categories before summative claims are made [4] [7].