What are the official estimates of unauthorized entries into the U.S. from 2017–2020 by DHS or CBP?
Executive summary
DHS/CBP do not publish a single official “successful unauthorized entries” count for 2017–2020; instead they publish encounter and apprehension data from which outside analysts have estimated successful entries (e.g., USAFacts reports the nationwide average annual estimated successful unauthorized entries fell to just over 190,000 for 2013–2020) [1]. CBP’s official public outputs for 2017–2020 are “apprehensions,” “inadmissibles,” and later consolidated “encounters,” and DHS’s Office of Immigration Statistics publishes separate resident-population estimates — none of the provided sources state a single DHS/CBP official nationwide “successful entries” time series for 2017–2020 [2] [3] [4].
1. What DHS/CBP officially report: “apprehensions,” “inadmissibles,” and later “encounters”
CBP’s public statistics for FY2017–FY2020 are structured around apprehensions (Border Patrol), inadmissibles (Office of Field Operations), and, beginning in March 2020, an expanded “encounters” concept that combines Title‑8 apprehensions/inadmissibles with Title‑42 expulsions [2] [5]. CBP’s FY2020 and FY2021 enforcement-statistics pages and its Southwest Land Border dashboards present counts of those categories by fiscal year and sector rather than a published DHS “successful entry” estimate [6] [7] [8].
2. Why there’s no single official “successful entries” number in CBP’s public tables
CBP’s operational metrics count people the agency physically detains, deems inadmissible at ports of entry, or formally expels; they do not directly count “gotaways” or every person who evaded detection. Because of that, independent estimates of “successful unauthorized entries” require combining CBP encounter counts with additional assumptions (apprehension rates, survey data, etc.). The CBP Nationwide Encounters dashboard explicitly defines what it counts (apprehensions/inadmissibles/Title‑42 expulsions) and warns that statistical figures are subject to change — it does not claim to measure total successful unauthorized entries [2].
3. How outside analysts derive “successful entries” and one widely cited result
Independent organizations replicate DHS methodology by dividing recorded Southwest Border encounter counts by estimated apprehension rates to infer likely successful entries. USAFacts, following a DHS approach described in an August 2020 CBP report, replicated DHS methods to estimate nationwide successful unauthorized entries and reported that from 2013–2020 the average dropped to just over 190,000 per year [1]. That estimate is built on CBP encounter data plus assumed apprehension rates and supplementary survey or sampling inputs described in the DHS report USAFacts replicates [1].
4. Limits and disagreements in the record
Available sources show disagreements about scale and interpretation. CBP’s own dashboards focus on “encounters” and do not provide a direct successful-entry series [2]. Congressional and advocacy accounts use CBP encounter totals differently: for example, a House Homeland Security Committee fact sheet contrasted ~3.1 million encounters in FY2017–2020 with much larger post‑2021 totals, and asserted additional “roughly two million known gotaways” recorded by CBP since FY2021 — a claim that relies on CBP internal estimates and is framed as a political critique [9]. Independent analysts (e.g., Migration Policy Institute, USAFacts) note CBP data allow estimates when combined with apprehension rates but emphasize methodological caveats [1] [10]. The provided sources do not contain a DHS/CBP single official published annual series labeled “successful unauthorized entries” for 2017–2020 [2] [4].
5. Bottom line for your query: what the official sources provide and what they do not
Official DHS/CBP publications for 2017–2020 provide counts of apprehensions, inadmissibles, expulsions and consolidated “encounters” — and DHS’s Office of Immigration Statistics publishes unauthorized‑resident population estimates — but they do not publish a direct, single-number official estimate of successful unauthorized entries nationwide for 2017–2020 in the materials cited here [6] [2] [3] [4]. Independent reconstructions, using DHS methodologies, estimate the nationwide annual average of successful unauthorized entries for 2013–2020 at just over 190,000 (USAFacts replicating DHS methodology) [1].
If you want, I can: (A) pull the CBP fiscal‑year apprehension totals for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (the raw “apprehensions” and “inadmissibles” figures) so you can see the official counts CBP does publish [6] [7], or (B) show how an estimate of successful entries is calculated step‑by‑step from encounters plus an apprehension rate using the USAFacts/DHS approach [1].