How many illegal immigrants came into the United States while Joe Biden was president
Executive summary
A single, definitive count of "how many illegal immigrants came into the United States while Joe Biden was president" does not exist in the public record because different sources measure different things — border "encounters," releases into the country, removals/expulsions, and changes in the unauthorized resident population — and each yields different multi‑million figures [1] [2] [3] [4]. The most verifiable government-derived tallies show millions of encounters at the southern border, roughly 2.5 million people released into the U.S. in initial processing and about 2.8 million removed or expelled through early counts, while independent demographers place the net increase in the unauthorized population at a few million rather than the 20–30 million claimed in some political rhetoric [1] [4] [5] [6].
1. What the major official tallies actually record — encounters, releases and removals
Customs and Border Protection and other agencies record "encounters" when migrants are apprehended or processed, and those tallies under Biden rose into the millions; for example one congressional posting noted 3.2 million nationwide encounters in FY2023 alone [2], and FactCheck reported that in the initial processing of millions of encounters about 2.5 million people were released into the U.S. while about 2.8 million were removed or expelled through October of a recent period [1]. Those encounter counts are the raw operational numbers used in many political claims, but encounters do not directly equal distinct people admitted to and remaining in the country, because they include repeat crossers, expulsions, and administrative outcomes [1] [7].
2. Why "encounters" are not the same as "people who entered and stayed"
Analysts and watchdogs warn that a substantial share of documented encounters are repeat offenders or people returned to their countries, and DHS reported that over 4 million migrants encountered have been returned, with repeat encounters estimated at 20–25 percent in some summaries — which reduces the number of unique new residents implied by raw encounter counts [7] [3]. Migration Policy Center and others also combine different enforcement categories — deportations, expulsions and other returns — to show that the Biden years produced millions of repatriations (nearly 4.4 million in one aggregation) even as arrivals surged [3].
3. The population-angle: how the unauthorized resident count changed
Demographers use population methods that differ from enforcement tallies; Pew Research found the unauthorized immigrant population reached a record 14 million in 2023, noting growth tied to parole programs and other policy changes [5]. The New York Times and CBO documented that total net migration (legal and unauthorized) averaged roughly 2.4 million per year from 2021–2023 and that total net migration during the Biden administration was likely to exceed eight million — a figure that includes legal migration and thus cannot be read as a count of "illegal immigrants" alone [4]. Independent estimates diverge: Cato presented an estimate of a net unauthorized increase of roughly 5.5–6 million during Biden’s term under certain methodological assumptions, while other researchers reject extremes like claims of 20–30 million new unauthorized arrivals [6].
4. Political claims versus careful measurement: why numbers balloon in debate
Republican committees and campaigns have emphasized cumulative encounter totals or selective categories to argue for dramatically larger inflows [8] [9] [10], while fact‑checking outlets and migration scholars caution that those raw figures are being conflated with unique admissions or long‑term residents [1] [7]. Some partisan briefings present cumulative encounters as if they were net new residents; independent analyses point to returns, removals and repeat encounters as major offsets to those tallies [2] [7] [1].
5. Bottom line and what the evidence supports
The evidence supports two firm conclusions: first, millions of unauthorized border encounters occurred during the Biden presidency and millions were processed through releases, expulsions and removals (for example ~2.5 million released and ~2.8 million removed in one aggregated accounting) [1]; second, the unauthorized resident population rose by multiple millions but not by the 20–30 million extremes cited in political rhetoric, with public estimates for the overall unauthorized population reaching about 14 million by 2023 and scholarly estimates of net unauthorized increases ranging in the low single‑digit millions depending on method [5] [6] [4]. A precise, single tally of "how many illegal immigrants came in" cannot be credibly produced from the available sources because of differing definitions and repeat encounters [1] [7].