How many people were at the border when President Biden left office
Executive summary
At the moment President Biden left office (January 2025), there is no single, undisputed headcount of “how many people were at the border”; reporters and officials instead point to several different metrics — cumulative encounters over his term, recent daily averages, and monthly totals — that produce different pictures. Depending on which official measure is cited, the relevant figures range from millions of cumulative “encounters” over his term to daily averages and month‑to‑month encounter counts showing steep recent declines (CBP and independent analysts report numbers supporting each claim) [1] [2] [3].
1. What people mean by “at the border”: encounters, apprehensions, gotaways and releases
The most common statistical term used by agencies and analysts is “encounters,” a composite figure that includes Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry, Office of Field Operations inadmissibles at ports of entry, and Title 42 expulsions; that data series is the basis for many of the cumulative totals cited in public debate [4] [2]. FactCheck and CBP distinguish “encounters” from longer‑term outcomes (releases, removals, asylum cases), underscoring that an initial encounter is only the first stage in what often becomes a lengthy administrative or legal lifecycle [2].
2. Cumulative totals across the Biden presidency — multiple published totals
Different reputable sources have published different cumulative tallies for Biden’s four years depending on cutoffs and definitions: FactCheck summarized 6.5 million southern border encounters for an earlier multi‑year window (February 2021 through a later month) [2]; Wikipedia and Migration Policy Institute reporting have cited figures in the 7–8 million range for “encounters” during the administration, noting that these counts can exclude “gotaways” that never interacted with agents [5] [6]. The Department of Homeland Security in a retrospective summary stated roughly 11 million border encounters over Biden’s four years and an average monthly encounter rate near 160,000, with daily peaks much higher — figures that reflect the internal DHS framing of the period [1].
3. Recent context at the end of the term: falling encounters and shorter time slices
By late 2024 federal officials and CBP were emphasizing sharp declines in encounters after policy changes: CBP reported a 60% decrease in encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border from May to December and highlighted a steep decline in Border Patrol apprehensions in the latter half of 2024 [3]. Migration Policy and other analysts likewise noted that in some short windows after enforcement changes the number of unauthorized crossings fell to several thousand encounters per day — for example a DHS figure of roughly 2,400 encounters per day in a specific post‑rule period was reported by Migration Policy [7].
4. Why the numbers are politically contested — different agendas, different snapshots
Numbers are wielded differently by advocates and critics: congressional Republicans have highlighted monthly totals and “gotaway” estimates to argue that hundreds of thousands entered in a month, while independent think tanks and DHS emphasize lifecycle or daily‑average metrics to show declines or different baselines [8] [7]. The same underlying data can be presented as evidence of a “crisis” or of successful enforcement depending on whether the speaker emphasizes cumulative totals, recent month‑to‑month declines, or rates of release versus removal [8] [6].
5. Bottom line — a defensible, source‑anchored answer
There is no single headcount of “people at the border” on the day Biden left office; for an overall sense: DHS/CBP statistics over his full term amount to many millions of encounters (agencies and analysts report figures from roughly 6.5 million up through about 11 million depending on definitions) [2] [1] [5], while late‑2024 monthly and daily data show the border situation easing compared with earlier peaks — for example CBP cited a multi‑month southwest decline of about 60% and Migration Policy referenced roughly 2,400 encounters per day in a recent post‑rule window [3] [7]. Readers should therefore treat any single number as a snapshot chosen to make a policy or political point and consult the underlying CBP encounter tables for precise definitions and timeframes [4].