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How do illegal border crossing numbers under Biden compare to Trump administration?
Executive summary
Available government and analytical reporting shows far more recorded “encounters” at the southern border during the Biden years than during Trump’s first term: about 9.4 million encounters from FY2021 through Feb. 2024, more than three times the Trump-era total over a comparable span [1]. Counts vary by metric—encounters, “gotaways,” expulsions/Title 42 removals, and deportations—and different outlets emphasize different ones, producing competing narratives about who “let in” more people [2] [1] [3].
1. What the headline numbers measure — encounters vs. people
The most commonly cited statistic is CBP “encounters,” meaning each time Border Patrol or CBP processes someone: a single person can produce multiple encounters if they try to cross more than once; from FY2021–Feb.2024 there were about 9.4 million such encounters under Biden, “more than three times” the comparable Trump-period figure cited by Migration Policy [1]. Because encounters count processing events rather than unique people, they overstate the number of distinct migrants when repeat attempts are common [1].
2. “Gotaways” and undetected crossings complicate the picture
Border Patrol also tracks “gotaways” — people seen crossing who were not stopped — and those figures rose under Biden-era early years: nearly 400,000 gotaways in FY2021, which Migration Monitor reporting says was more than double the highest annual total during the Trump administration [2]. The Monitor and other outlets emphasize that an unknown number remain undetected entirely, so no publicly available metric gives a definitive count of how many migrants entered and stayed [2].
3. Expulsions, Title 42 and the effects on year-to-year totals
Pandemic-era Title 42 expulsions and other policies materially affected totals. Migration Policy notes that the Biden period included about 3 million expulsions under Title 42 (March 2020–May 2023), and that when you combine deportations, expulsions and other returns the Biden administration recorded nearly 4.4 million repatriations—already more than any single presidential term in recent history [1]. That means headline “more crossings” claims must be seen alongside large numbers of removals and expulsions conducted during Biden’s term [1].
4. Different outlets, different emphases — why narratives diverge
Newsweek, PBS, CS Monitor and Migration Policy each highlight different measures. For example, Newsweek pointed to 3.2 million CBP encounters in 2023 versus 1.4 million in Trump’s peak year 2019, framing Biden-era totals as much higher [3]. PBS cautioned that short-term comparisons (daily averages over a few days) can mislead and that trends must be viewed over longer periods [4]. The Center for Immigration Studies and other pro-restriction voices produce high-end estimates of unauthorized residents; some Republicans claim totals as high as 8–9 million admitted under Biden, but the CS Monitor notes those claims are political and not directly supported by a single, public government tally [2].
5. Enforcement and removals: deportations and administrative returns
Migration Policy reports about 1.1 million deportations from FY2021 through Feb. 2024 (on pace to match Trump’s four-year deportation total of ~1.5 million) and emphasizes that combined enforcement returns and expulsions under Biden exceed those of recent presidents [1]. That complicates simplistic statements that one administration “let in” more people — enforcement actions under Biden were numerically large even as encounters increased [1].
6. Recent shifts and political context
Several sources show flows shifting over time: 2023 saw record encounters, but later policy changes and enforcement adjustments produced declines into late 2024 and early 2025 according to outlets such as Newsweek and later reporting cited by CBS and administration releases [3] [5] [6]. Political actors use those shifts to claim success or failure: the Biden side points to expulsions and deportations, while Trump allies highlight steep declines after policy changes in 2024–25 [1] [5] [6].
7. Bottom line and limits of available reporting
Available sources agree on two points: that CBP encounters were substantially higher during much of Biden’s term than under Trump’s first term [1] [3], and that the data are complex and metric-dependent — encounters ≠ unique individuals, gotaways and undetected crossings are imperfectly measured, and expulsions/deportations also shape net totals [2] [1] [4]. Sources do not provide a single, authoritative “net number of unauthorized immigrants who entered and remained” that would allow a simple apples-to-apples count of how many more (or fewer) people each president “let in” [2].
If you want, I can extract a short table of the key numbers cited by these outlets (encounters, gotaways, expulsions/deportations) so you can compare metrics side by side; tell me which time windows you want compared.