Did Biden let in 15 million illegals

1. What the headline numbers actually are

Since January 2021 U.S. authorities recorded millions of “encounters” at the border — figures reported as about 8.6 million on the southwest border through October 2024 and more than 10 million total encounters across ports and borders in some tallies — but agency “encounters” count events, not unique people, and include many repeat crossers and administrative expulsions ^{[2] [4] [3]}.

2. Encounters ≠ people who stayed

Multiple fact‑checks and government lifecycle data emphasize that encounters measure contacts, not the number of migrants who successfully entered and remained; for example, FactCheck.org noted that initial processing showed roughly 2.5 million people released into the U.S. and 2.8 million removed or expelled in the early Biden years — a very different picture than summing raw encounter counts and assuming all stayed ^[1]. The distinction between “released” and “encountered,” and the prevalence of repeat attempts and expulsions, is central to debunking simplistic claims.

3. Independent population estimates put the undocumented population far below 15 million added under Biden

Research from nonpartisan groups shows a much smaller undocumented population than what some political claims imply: Pew and other analysts reported the unauthorized population at record levels (Pew later estimated 14 million in 2023), but that is a snapshot of the total undocumented population, not an addition solely attributable to Biden; other academic estimates like the Center for Migration Studies put current totals around 10.9 million, and analyses that try to measure net increases during the Biden years suggest increases of a few million rather than 15 million added arrivals ^{[5] [6] [7]}.

4. Where the “millions” claims come from — and why they spread

Political actors and commentators often conflate cumulative encounter totals, estimated “got‑aways,” parole program beneficiaries, and multi‑year population projections to assemble large-sounding numbers; outlets and fact checks warn this conflation inflates the reality because encounters include repeat contacts and many migrants are expelled, removed, or depart voluntarily ^{[3] [1]}. Think tanks and partisan committees also produce alternative tallies — sometimes using different definitions or selective timeframes — that serve political narratives on both sides ^{[8] [9]}.

5. Policy decisions matter — parole programs and processing changed flows but don’t equal “letting in” a summative number

The Biden administration did enact parole programs and reversed or modified some Trump-era restrictions, which increased lawful and parole arrivals in specific categories and changed the composition of migrants, but those policy shifts are not a blanket admission of 15 million unauthorized immigrants; Pew and migration analysts explicitly tie increases to a mix of parole, asylum processing, and broader migration trends rather than a single policy permissiveness ^{[10] [5] [2]}.

6. Bottom line and limits of available reporting

The best available reporting and analysis converge on this: the U.S. recorded millions of border encounters under Biden, and the undocumented population rose by several million in that period, but the claim that Biden “let in 15 million illegals” as a literal, single‑actor admission is not supported by the data — it conflates encounters, repeats, parolees, and population totals ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Reporting limitations include lags in lifecycle data for asylum and removal cases and differing methodologies among researchers, so precise net‑migration accounting for 2021–2024 remains complex and subject to revision ^{[1] [2]}.