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Fact check: How many people crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization each year from 2021 to 2024 according to CBP?
Executive Summary
The most direct CBP figures available for Fiscal Years 2021–2024 report Total Enforcement Encounters of 1,956,519 in FY2021, 2,766,582 in FY2022, 3,201,144 in FY2023, and 2,901,142 in FY2024; these are the annual encounter counts routinely cited by CBP and congressional summaries [1] [2]. CBP and oversight reports also emphasize that since FY2021 there have been more than 10.8 million encounters nationwide and over 8.72 million at the Southwest border, but CBP’s public dashboards and releases do not present those totals as simple counts of unique people who “crossed without authorization,” and they group multiple encounter types and operational categories [3].
1. Why the headline numbers matter — and why they don’t directly answer “how many people crossed”
CBP’s published annual figures labeled as Total Enforcement Encounters are the standard metric for reporting operational workload and appear in CBP enforcement statistics for FY2021–FY2024, showing the year-by-year counts listed above [1]. These encounter totals include a mix of Title 8 enforcement actions, Title 42 expulsions, arrests, expulsions, inadmissible encounters at ports of entry, and other administrative actions, and CBP and congressional summaries highlight both nationwide and Southwest border shares of those encounters [3] [4]. Because the data combine expulsions, repeat encounters of the same individual, and distinct categories of action, the encounter totals are not equivalent to a one-to-one count of unique people who crossed the U.S.–Mexico border without authorization; CBP documentation and the Nationwide Enforcement dashboard explicitly flag these definitional limits [4] [3].
2. The annual trend CBP reports: rising through 2023, down in 2024
CBP’s year-by-year enforcement encounter counts show a rising trend from FY2021 (1.96 million) to FY2023 (3.20 million), followed by a decline in FY2024 to 2.90 million; this pattern is presented in CBP enforcement statistics and was reiterated in fiscal-year-end summaries [1] [2]. CBP’s monthly operational updates also recorded that Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry in FY2024 were the lowest since FY2020, with a 25% year-over-year decrease noted in agency releases, and monthly southwest border irregular encounter counts fell sharply in certain months such as October 2024 [5] [6]. These data points converge on an operational story of peak activity through FY2023 followed by reduced encounters in FY2024, but they do not convert encounters into unique unauthorized crossers without additional de-duplication that CBP does not publish on the primary dashboards [1] [5].
3. The cumulative context CBP and oversight bodies provide since FY2021
Multiple CBP releases and congressional summaries emphasize cumulative magnitude: more than 10.8 million encounters nationwide since FY2021, including over 8.72 million at the Southwest border, and breakdowns by migrant type such as single adults, family unit individuals, and unaccompanied children have been published [3]. These cumulative figures are intended to portray total operational demand and resource impact rather than to present a clean count of distinct unlawful crossings. CBP’s materials specifically separate counts of single adults (5.50M), family unit individuals (2.66M), and unaccompanied children [7] [8] at the Southwest border since FY2021, illustrating how reporting emphasizes programmatic categories and operational caseloads instead of unique-person tallies [3].
4. Data system changes and reporting caveats that affect interpretation
CBP’s reporting architecture and dashboards have evolved; the Nationwide Enforcement Encounters dashboard announced it would no longer be updated as of FY2024 and directed users to alternative pages like the CBP Custody and Transfer page for updated Title 8 statistics, signaling that source and categorization changes can affect longitudinal comparisons [4]. CBP’s public statements and House oversight summaries repeatedly caution that encounters can include expulsions, administrative removals, and repeated contacts with the same individuals, and that user-facing dashboards do not always provide de-duplicated counts of unique individuals — a critical caveat when answering “how many people crossed” [3] [4].
5. Bottom line for the original question and what would be needed for a different answer
The best available CBP-published annual numbers for FY2021–FY2024 are the Total Enforcement Encounters: 1,956,519 (FY2021), 2,766,582 (FY2022), 3,201,144 (FY2023), and 2,901,142 (FY2024); these are the figures most frequently cited in CBP enforcement statistics and congressional summaries [1] [2]. To convert those encounter tallies into an accurate count of unique people who crossed the U.S.–Mexico border without authorization would require CBP to release de-duplicated person-level data or a methodology explicitly separating expulsions, single crosses, and repeat encounters — information CBP’s public dashboards and releases do not provide in the cited materials [4] [3].