Fact check: Which US ports of entry have the highest number of European national apprehensions in 2025?

1. Why the request cannot be satisfied with supplied documents — clear absence of port-level nationality counts

All three analyses tied to CBP materials explicitly lack the specific metric the question seeks: no source among the supplied CBP items lists apprehensions by nationality at individual ports of entry for 2025. The April 2025 monthly update and custody statistics discuss southwest border encounters and aggregate trends, including a reported decline in apprehensions, but they do not break down counts by European nationality at named ports ^{[1] [2]}. The CBP Public Data Portal is cited as a resource to download detailed datasets, but the provided summary of that portal does not demonstrate that the relevant extract was accessed or that it contains the requested 2025 port-level European-national counts ^[3]. This absence is decisive: the materials supplied do not contain the fact requested.

2. What the CBP documents do provide and where they fall short

The CBP April 2025 monthly update documents an overall decrease in southwest border apprehensions in April 2025 versus April 2024 and reports specific aggregate values, demonstrating CBP’s published capacity for monthly operational statistics ^[1]. The custody and transfer statistics offer sector and month breakdowns for Border Patrol encounters, showing the agency’s usual granularity for internal metrics ^[2]. The Public Data Portal is referenced as a repository that “offers links to various datasets and dashboards,” which indicates the portal is the rational next step to extract port- and nationality-specific figures if those fields are published ^[3]. However, none of these supplied documents actually present the port-by-port nationality counts necessary to answer the user’s exact question.

3. Why European migration analyses supplied here are not substitutes for U.S. port data

The analyses drawn from European migration agencies and think tanks focus on inflows to Europe, demographic shifts, and policy outlooks rather than inbound travel or enforcement outcomes at U.S. ports of entry. These sources, including the ICMPD Migration Outlook and EU labor migration briefs, offer context on European migration dynamics but do not report U.S. immigration enforcement counts or port-level apprehension statistics ^{[4] [5] [6]}. Citing these pieces as evidence for U.S. port apprehension rankings would substitute related thematic context for the factual dataset requested, which is methodologically unsound given the absence of direct port-level figures.

4. Related U.S. reporting offers operational context but not the numeric answer

U.S.-focused reporting in the supplied analyses touches on biometric collection and concerns about enforcement practices, showing relevant changes in CBP and ICE operations and privacy practices, but these pieces likewise do not provide the numeric breakdown of European-national apprehensions by U.S. port in 2025 ^{[7] [8] [9]}. These stories are valuable for understanding enforcement context and possible reasons why specific nationalities might appear in datasets, but they are not substitutes for the missing port-level counts. The supplied pieces illustrate agency activities and practices rather than furnish the rostered statistics the question requires.

5. Structural reasons the requested statistic may be absent from summaries

CBP reporting commonly publishes aggregated encounter totals, sector-level summaries, and thematic dashboards, while port-level nationality disaggregation may exist only in raw data extracts or internal reports not summarized in public monthly briefs ^{[2] [3]}. Privacy, operational security, data release practices, and the need to standardize nationality coding can limit how and where nationality-by-port figures appear. The supplied summary of the Public Data Portal indicates that numerous datasets and dashboards are available, implying the data could exist but was not presented in the supplied excerpts ^[3].

6. How to obtain the precise port-level European-national counts for 2025 using available channels

The fastest evidence-based route is to query CBP’s Public Data Portal for a dataset that includes fields for “port of entry,” “nationality,” and “apprehension/encounter date” for 2025; if the portal lacks that extract, request a tailored data pull from CBP’s Office of Information and Privacy or submit a FOIA request specifying those fields and date ranges ^[3]. For corroboration, cross-check monthly CBP operational reports and custody statistics for aggregate totals and compare any portal extract to ensure consistency with public monthly updates ^{[1] [2]}. None of the supplied materials show that these steps were completed.

7. What a defensible public answer would require and pitfalls to avoid

A defensible ranking of ports by European-national apprehensions would require a published CBP extract or internal report that lists counts by named port and by recorded nationality for calendar year 2025, ideally with metadata explaining nationality coding and whether counts reflect apprehensions, inadmissibles, or other encounter types. Avoid using European migration analyses or U.S. enforcement feature stories as proxies; those items provide context but not the necessary primary counts ^{[4] [7]}. The supplied documents do not offer the primary dataset, so any published ranking without sourcing that CBP extract would be unsupported.

8. Bottom line and recommended next steps for a factual answer

Bottom line: the supplied analyses do not contain port-level counts of European-national apprehensions for 2025, so the question cannot be answered from these materials alone ^{[1] [2] [3]}. To obtain a factual answer, retrieve or request the CBP Public Data Portal extract that includes