How many illegal aliens were flown into the United States of America under biden
Executive summary
There is no single, authoritative count that says “X illegal aliens were flown into the United States under Biden”; estimates vary widely depending on definitions (paroled in, released after an encounter, encountered at the border, or net change in the undocumented population) and the sources used (government lifecycle reports, independent demographers, congressional fact sheets) [1] [2] [3] [4]. Narrowly counting migrants who arrived under specific parole-by-air programs gives a figure in the hundreds of thousands, while broader tallies of encounters, releases, and net population changes produce multi‑million ranges — and the most extreme viral claims (e.g., 20 million flown in) are not supported by the available reporting [2] [3] [5].
1. What “flown into” usually means — parole flights and formal programs
When reporters and politicians say migrants were “flown into” the United States they most often mean admissions under parole programs and port-of-entry processing that included air transport, such as the CHNV (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela) parole program; Pew’s reporting counted about 530,000 migrants admitted under CHNV parole through late 2024, a concrete example of migrants who were processed and admitted via programmatic pathways that often involved flights [2]. Congressional Republican fact sheets and House committee releases have focused on CBP One and related mass‑parole arrangements and have asserted that “via just the CHNV and CBP One programs” more than 1.4 million inadmissible aliens were released into the United States — a figure tied to programmatic releases rather than a raw count of people who literally arrived on government‑paid flights [3].
2. Encounters, releases and removals: a different counting logic
Federal data and independent fact‑checks often use the terms “encounters,” “released,” “removed/expelled,” and “released into the U.S. to await processing,” which creates different numerators: FactCheck.org summarized earlier DHS lifecycle data as indicating roughly 2.5 million people released into the U.S. and about 2.8 million removed or expelled in a given multi‑year span, reflecting border processing outcomes rather than a tally of flights organized by the federal government [1]. DHS and advocacy groups also note that many encounters are repeat encounters and that millions of “encounters” do not equal unique individuals admitted to remain in the country [6].
3. Net population change vs. operational counts
Demographers measure the undocumented population differently: Cato Institute analyses estimated a net increase in the illegal immigrant population of roughly 5.5 to 6 million during the Biden administration based on demographic residual methods and pre‑2020 trends; that figure is a population estimate that incorporates entries, exits and other assumptions and is not a direct count of flights or program admissions [4]. Pew Research produced a separate estimate that the unauthorized immigrant population reached about 14 million in 2023 and that programmatic parole admissions (including CHNV) accounted for several hundred thousand admissions — again illustrating how population estimates and program admissions are separate metrics [2].
4. The 20‑million claim and why it fails basic source tests
Multiple fact‑checks and analysts have flagged viral claims that “20 million” or “30 million” illegal immigrants were flown in under Biden as exaggerations not grounded in the public data; Newsweek and other outlets note that such large figures far exceed peer‑reviewed or government‑aligned estimates and conflate encounters, population estimates and hypothetical projections [5]. The evidence in publicly available reporting does not support a 20‑million count attributable to flights or programmatic admissions under the Biden administration [5] [4].
5. Bottom line, limits and why precision is elusive
A defensible short answer: hundreds of thousands were admitted under specific parole programs (Pew: ~530,000 CHNV parolees) and program‑focused counts reported by congressional committees put program releases into the low millions (e.g., >1.4 million via CHNV and CBP One as claimed by a House committee), while lifecycle/encounter accounting across multiple years yields multi‑million numbers of releases and removals but not a single authoritative “flown in” tally; extreme claims like “20 million flown in” are not supported by the cited sources [2] [3] [1] [5]. Available reporting is explicit about methodological limits — repeat encounters, different definitions of “released” or “admitted,” and gaps in publicly released DHS statistics — and therefore no precise, universally accepted number answering “how many illegal aliens were flown into the United States under Biden” can be produced from the sources provided [6] [1].