How many immigrants entered the country under Trump's first term?
Executive summary
The short answer: there is no single, uncontested tally of “how many immigrants entered” during President Trump’s first term because different datasets count different things; the best high-level summary from published compilations is that net immigration during his four-year term totaled roughly 3 million people (Visual Capitalist) while Border Patrol reported about 1.8 million between‑ports encounters over that same period—figures that measure different phenomena and cannot be simply added together [1] [2].
1. What “entered the country” can mean and why it matters
“Entered” might refer to lawful admissions (green cards and visas), unauthorized border crossings or encounters, net immigration (the change in the foreign‑born population), or releases and paroles that allow people to remain while cases proceed; official sources and analysts warn these are distinct measures and federal encounter statistics do not count unique people, so none alone answers the user’s question definitively [3] [4].
2. Net immigration: the headline aggregate
One widely cited charting of presidential-era totals shows net immigration during Trump’s first term at about 3 million people, a summary figure intended to capture overall inflows minus outflows and deaths during the period rather than raw border arrests or visa issuances [1].
3. Border‑security encounters and “entries” between ports of entry
Border Patrol data compiled by fact-checkers and reporting indicate roughly 1.8 million between‑ports encounters from February 2017 through January 2021—this is not the number of unique people who “entered” because many migrants are encountered multiple times and Title 42 expulsions and other policies changed how encounters are recorded [2] [3].
4. Legal admissions fell sharply in several categories
Analysts and advocacy groups documented major drops in legal immigration channels during Trump’s term: one estimate puts a reduction of at least 418,453 immigrant visas (green cards issued abroad) and more than 11 million fewer nonimmigrant visa issuances through November 2020, and refugee admissions were cut to historically low levels [5] States" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[6]. Those declines reflect policy choices and pandemic travel restrictions, which complicate comparisons to prior administrations [7].
5. Enforcement and removals complicate the picture
Deportation and removal totals changed over the period and are tracked separately from admissions; removals under Trump were substantial in some years, and monthly apprehension totals fluctuated widely—apprehensions hit more than 70,000 in late 2020—so immigration flows and enforcement removals must both be read into any assessment of how many people were in or passed through the system [8] [6].
6. Bottom line and limits of the record
Putting the evidence together: the most defensible single aggregate is the roughly 3 million net immigrants attributed to Trump’s first term [1], but that figure does not describe how many people crossed the border, how many arrived lawfully, or how many unique unauthorized entrants there were; other useful figures are ~1.8 million Border Patrol between‑ports encounters [2] and documented large reductions in legal visa issuances and refugee admissions [5] [6]. Any precise count of “entered the country” requires a clarified definition and access to the distinct DHS/CBP/State/USCIS line‑level data, which the cited reporting notes are often partial, aggregated differently, or affected by policy shifts such as Title 42 [3] [4].