HOw many immigrants came into the country during the biden administration?
Executive summary
The question has no single numeric answer because "how many immigrants came into the country" can mean different things: CBP/Border Patrol encounters, people released into the U.S. to await proceedings, formal admissions, removals/expulsions, or the net change in the unauthorized population — and available reporting uses all of those different measures [1] [2] [3] [4]. Using commonly cited government and analyst figures, irregular "encounters" during the Biden presidency total in the high millions (roughly 7–10 million depending on scope), about 2.5 million people were initially released into the U.S., and the unauthorized population rose to an estimated record 14 million by 2023 — far short of repeated claims that 20 million people "entered illegally" under Biden [2] [1] [3] [5].
1. Encounters and apprehensions: millions, but not one definitive “entries” number
Customs and Border Protection and related tracking count "encounters" — apprehensions, expulsions, and processing events — rather than unique people, producing tallies in the millions: the House Homeland Security Committee cited more than 9.5 million nationwide encounters and more than 7.8 million at the Southwest border since Biden took office, while Migration Policy Institute and other trackers note roughly 8.6 million migrant encounters at the U.S.–Mexico border in the administration’s early years [2] [6]. These encounter totals include people who tried multiple times, those expelled under public-health rules, and scheduled port-of-entry admissions, so they cannot be read as a simple count of distinct new residents [6] [2].
2. Released, removed, repatriated: different outcomes inside the raw totals
Government processing produced divergent outcomes: FactCheck.org summarized DHS data showing about 2.5 million people were released into the U.S. after initial processing while roughly 2.8 million were removed or expelled in the same datasets, and Migration Policy tallied nearly 4.4 million combined repatriations (deportations, expulsions, and returns) under Biden — again underscoring that large raw encounter numbers are split among releases, removals, and repeat attempts [1] [4].
3. Net unauthorized population change: record high but far below the 20 million claim
Demographic estimates capture net population effects rather than encounter activity: Pew Research reported the unauthorized immigrant population reached a record 14 million in 2023, reflecting growth in certain nationalities tied to parole programs and other policies [3]. Independent analysts such as the Cato Institute's calculations suggest a net increase in the unauthorized population of roughly 5.5–6 million during Biden’s term rather than a 20–30 million inflow claimed by some commentators [7]. Newsweek and other fact-checkers have flagged the claim that 20 million illegal immigrants entered under Biden as an exaggeration and not supported by the available data [5].
4. Enforcement and removals complicate the narrative — high deportation year and shifting policy tools
Enforcement statistics add nuance: ICE reported that removals rose sharply and reached a near–decade high in fiscal 2024, with news outlets noting more than 271,000 deportations that year, demonstrating that the administration both processed large numbers at the border and carried out substantial removals [8] [9]. Migration Policy and PBS coverage emphasize that border policy tools (Title 42 expulsions, parole schemes, CBP One appointments) and repeated crossings make any single headline number misleading without the context of what kinds of encounters and outcomes are being counted [6] [10].
5. Bottom line and limits of public data
Answering "how many immigrants came into the country during the Biden administration" requires specifying the metric: using encounter-based measures yields totals in the 7–10 million range of recorded border interactions (not unique entrants), DHS processing shows about 2.5 million people released to await proceedings and multi‑million removals/repatriations, and demographic estimates place the unauthorized population at roughly 14 million by 2023 — none of which confirm the widely repeated 20-million‑entered claim noted in political attacks and corrected by fact-checkers [2] [1] [4] [3] [5]. Available sources provide overlapping but not unified accounting, and public data limitations (double-counting of repeat crossings, different definitions for "admissions" vs. "encounters," and evolving parole/expulsion policies) mean any single headline number simplifies a complex set of processes [1] [6].