How many illegal aliens came over the border during Biden Administration?
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Executive summary
Government data and independent reporting show millions of “encounters” at the Southwest border during the Biden presidency, but those encounter totals are not the same as a count of unique people who “came over” and stayed; CBP encounter tallies exceed seven million in some publicly cited tallies, while DHS lifecycle figures break that down into roughly 2.5 million released and 2.8 million removed or expelled in initial processing — and no authoritative government figure exists for the net number who entered and remained [1] [2] [3].
1. What the raw tallies say: millions of CBP “encounters,” not people
Multiple mainstream trackers and fact-checkers report that CBP encounter totals during the Biden administration reached into the multi‑millions — for example, Snopes reported more than 7.2 million Southwest border encounters as of January 2024 and other Republican outlets cite figures above 7.8 million depending on what is included — but those counts register encounters (events) between migrants and agents, not a clean headcount of distinct individuals who entered and stayed [1] [4].
2. How DHS lifecycle figures translate to releases and removals
A closer disaggregation of DHS processing data used by fact‑checkers shows that in initial DHS processing roughly 2.5 million people were released into the U.S. and about 2.8 million were removed or expelled (many under Title 42 during the pandemic), figures repeatedly noted in public analyses of lifecycle and detention statistics [2]. Those released numbers include a mix of parolees, transfers to HHS for unaccompanied children, ICE releases, and alternatives to detention — categories that complicate any simple “entered and stayed” claim [2].
3. Repeat crossers, “gotaways,” returns and why totals can deceive
Multiple analysts warn that encounter totals overstate unique people because they include repeat crossers and do not count undetected “gotaways” the same way; the Center for Migration Studies and DHS sources indicate that 20–25 percent of encounters can be repeat offenders and that over 4 million migrants encountered have been returned, which reduces how many unique individuals those headline numbers represent [5]. Congressional and partisan reports amplify different slices — some tally “gotaways” or parole programs on top of encounters — producing widely varying totals from 2–3 million released/removed up to 7–8+ million encounters cited by Republicans [2] [4] [6].
4. Why there is no authoritative single number for “how many came over and stayed”
The U.S. government does not publish a definitive net estimate of how many people crossed illegally and remained in the country during the Biden years; CBP publicly reports encounters while other agencies report removals, transfers and releases, and independent estimates of the undocumented population (for example Pew, CIS) attempt to infer net changes but differ in methodology — a point emphasized by reporting that the government’s main metric is encounters and not net inflow or stock of undocumented residents [3] [7].
5. Bottom line and the honest answer to the question asked
The honest, evidence‑based reply is: there is no single, verifiable count of distinct “illegal aliens who came over the border and remained” published by the government; publicly cited encounter tallies during the Biden administration are in the multi‑millions (commonly reported figures include roughly 7–8 million encounters through early 2024), DHS processing reports show about 2.5 million releases and about 2.8 million removals/expulsions in initial processing, and independent analyses warn that repeat crossings and returns materially change the interpretation of those totals — therefore any claim of a precise number of people who “came over” and stayed requires assumptions not present in the official data [1] [2] [5] [3] [7].