How many unique individuals (not encounters) does CBP estimate entered the U.S. unlawfully since 2021?
Executive summary
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports encounter totals—10.8 million “encounters” nationwide since the start of Fiscal Year (FY) 2021—but does not publish a single, definitive cumulative figure for the number of unique individuals who unlawfully entered the United States over that period in the materials provided here [1] [2]. CBP has, however, published related measures (monthly unique counts, repeat‑encounter rates and encounter totals) that allow rough, model‑dependent estimates but not a confirmed headcount of unique persons since 2021 [3] [4] [5].
1. Encounters vs. unique people: the data CBP actually publishes
CBP’s public statistics distinguish “encounters” (a count of interactions with noncitizens under CBP authorities) from other metrics like “inadmissibles,” Title 42 expulsions and monthly unique‑individual snapshots, and CBP’s nationwide encounter page archives these encounter totals—including the 10.8 million figure since FY2021—but does not present a single cumulative “unique individuals since 2021” total in the documents cited here [1] [2] [6].
2. What CBP has said about repeat encounters and unique‑person reporting
CBP itself has highlighted that repeat encounters grew during the pandemic period, noting that total enforcement encounters rose sharply while the number of unique individuals encountered rose by a smaller amount—CBP reported a 30% increase in unique individuals between 2019 and 2021 even as encounters jumped 82%—and that the repeat‑encounter rate jumped to “more than one in three encounters” after Title 42 expulsions began, a statistic that matters when converting encounters to unique persons [3].
3. Concrete snapshots CBP does publish (examples, not a cumulative total)
CBP releases periodic operational snapshots: for example, the agency reported 164,911 unique individuals encountered along the Southwest border in August 2023, demonstrating that CBP does report monthly unique counts for specific geographies and periods but not a single cumulative unique‑individual total across FY2021–FY2024 in the sources provided [4].
4. Encounter totals and “gotaways” that complicate a headcount
Advocacy and congressional materials emphasize total encounters—House Homeland Security cited “more than 10.8 million encounters” since FY2021—and separate categories such as roughly 2 million known “gotaways” reported in some summaries; these different tallies (apprehensions, inadmissibles, expulsions, gotaways) are aggregated into the encounter totals but do not by themselves identify distinct people over multi‑year spans [1].
5. Rough, illustrative estimate — what an approximation looks like and its limits
Using CBP’s 10.8 million encounters since FY2021 [1] and the agency’s own note that repeat encounters rose to “more than one in three” (i.e., >33%) in the pandemic era [3], a back‑of‑the‑envelope adjustment would suggest on the order of several million unique individuals (for example 10.8M × ~0.66 ≈ ~7.1M), but this is an illustrative calculation only: it assumes a constant repeat rate across all years, geographies and encounter types, which CBP data show is not constant and which the agency does not publish as an aggregate cumulative unique‑person figure in the cited material [3] [2]. Therefore this estimate is model‑dependent and not an official CBP count.
6. Bottom line and what’s missing from public reporting
There is no authoritative, single CBP figure in the provided sources that states “X unique individuals unlawfully entered the U.S. since 2021”; CBP provides encounter totals (10.8M since FY2021), sampled monthly unique counts, and repeat‑encounter context, but the agency has not released a consolidated cumulative unique‑individual headcount for that multi‑year span in the documents cited here [1] [3] [4]. Any definitive answer would require either a CBP release explicitly aggregating unique individuals across FY2021–FY2024 or access to the agency’s person‑level records and recidivism distributions—not available in the sources provided [5].