How many crossed us southern border under trump first term
Executive summary
Available reporting in the packet does not provide a single, authoritative total count of people who crossed the U.S.–Mexico southern border during Donald Trump’s first term (Jan 2017–Jan 2021); instead, the sources describe trends — notably that border encounters and apprehensions were generally lower under the Trump administration than under the subsequent Biden administration, with shifting demographics and enforcement practices [1] [2] [3].
1. The question behind the question: “How many crossed?”
Asking “how many crossed” conflates several distinct metrics used by government agencies and journalists — “encounters” or “apprehensions” recorded by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), “gotaways” seen but not stopped, and later counts of removals or returns by DHS and ICE — and the provided reporting makes clear these are tracked differently and can’t be summed without a single authoritative dataset [3] [4].
2. What the packet’s reporting does say about scale and direction
Multiple pieces of reporting emphasize that unauthorized border encounters were markedly higher under the Biden administration than during Trump’s tenure and that flows “plummeted” or were “lower” in Trump’s first term relative to later years, a comparative claim supported by analyses in PBS, NBC, Pew and others included here [1] [5] [2] [3].
3. Short snapshots do exist, but they don’t equal a term‑long total
The PBS fact‑check cites very small window figures — for example, Border Patrol “encounters” of 7,287 during Trump’s first seven days — which illustrate short‑term snapshots but do not provide an aggregate for the full four‑year period [1]. Other reporting in the packet focuses on fiscal‑year or month‑to‑month comparisons rather than a single cumulative total for 2017–2021 [2] [3].
4. Different counts and different agencies: why totals are tricky
DHS and ICE publish different kinds of counts — removals/repats, CBP encounters at or between ports of entry, and Border Patrol apprehensions — and the Migration Policy piece warns that DHS’s headline “removed” numbers include diverse categories such as removals from communities and returns at the border, complicating simple summation [4]. The CS Monitor and Brookings reporting similarly underline that “encounters” and “gotaways” are distinct measures and that estimating net new unauthorized residents from encounters requires additional assumptions [3] [6].
5. What can be reliably said from the supplied sources
From the supplied reporting it is reliable to state that Trump’s first term saw lower monthly averages of CBP encounters compared with the large surge documented under Biden — reporting cites contrasts such as Biden-era totals of millions of encounters versus much smaller annual averages during Trump — and that the composition of migrants shifted toward families, with asylum seekers forming a growing share of encounters [3] [2]. The packet also documents administration claims of dramatic reductions in “gotaways” and single‑day lows in apprehensions, though those are presented as government assertions and short‑term figures rather than comprehensive four‑year totals [1] [7].
6. Limitations in the reporting and what would be needed to answer precisely
None of the provided sources gives a single, verified cumulative count for all crossings into the United States across Trump’s full first term; producing that number would require compiling year‑by‑year CBP and DHS data (apprehensions, gotaways estimates, and returns/removals) and reconciling overlapping categories — a task beyond the scope of the included reporting and not completed in these sources [4] [3].