How did annual U.S. border encounters at the southwest border vary by fiscal year since 1990?
Executive summary
Annual southwest border “encounters” have swung dramatically since 1990, with peaks above 1.6 million in FY1986 and FY2000 and a modern-era high of about 1.66 million in FY2021, followed by even larger totals reported for FY2022 (~2.2M) and FY2023 (~2.4M) in some sources; official CBP dashboards host year-by‑year counts and note methodological changes such as inclusion of Title 42 expulsions beginning in FY2020 [1] [2] [3].
1. A long, volatile record: trends and official sources
The authoritative, year-by‑year data on southwest border encounters is maintained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on its "Southwest Land Border Encounters" and related data portals; those dashboards aggregate Border Patrol apprehensions, Office of Field Operations inadmissibles, and — since early 2020 — Title 42 expulsions, and they warn that final statistics are locked only at fiscal‑year end [3] [4] [5].
2. Peaks in the 1980s–2000 and the 2020s resurgence
Historical highs existed long before the 2020s: CBP-era summaries show more than 1.6 million encounters in FY1986 and FY2000; recent reporting identifies FY2021 as the highest recorded year in the CBP time series with 1,659,206 encounters, narrowly exceeding 2000’s total, and CRS and other analyses report even larger totals in FY2022 (~2.2 million) and FY2023 (~2.4 million) [1] [2] [6].
3. Why year‑to‑year comparisons are complicated
Comparisons across decades are complicated by definitional and policy shifts. Reporting practices changed when CBP began including Title 42 expulsions in encounter counts starting March FY2020, and the dashboards note that data are live, subject to corrections, and formally locked only after the fiscal year closes; analysts and agencies explicitly caution about changes in what counts as an “encounter” [3] [7] [4].
4. Repeats, "encounters" vs distinct people, and “gotaways”
CBP and analysts stress that “encounters” are events, not unique individuals: repeat crossers can inflate totals; CRS and Pew note that encounters may overstate distinct people encountered, and outside groups (USAFacts) have combined encounter totals with modeled estimates of successful evaders to argue the number of distinct entries differs from encounter totals [1] [8] [9].
5. Recent policy context that drove sharp swings
Large swings in FY2020–FY2023 reflect pandemic-era restrictions, Title 42 public‑health expulsions, and subsequent policy changes that altered flows and processing: FY2020 fell sharply amid COVID travel restrictions and Title 42 use, FY2021 rebounded sharply to ~1.66M as restrictions eased, and FY2022–FY2023 saw still higher totals as different enforcement, processing and humanitarian pressures interacted [1] [2] [7].
6. Multiple data presentations and partisan readings
The numbers are politically charged. Congressional committees and advocacy groups highlight select figures to support competing claims: House Homeland Security materials called FY2023 “worst year…ever” citing ~2.4M SWB encounters [6], while CRS and Pew present context about historical comparison and data definitions [2] [1]. The underlying CBP dashboards are the primary source for raw counts [3] [4].
7. How to get the exact year‑by‑year table you asked about
For a complete FY1990–present annual series, the CBP Nationwide and Southwest Land Border encounters dashboards and their downloadable data portals provide the official counts and metadata; those pages also include notes on definitions, Title 42 inclusion, and finalization timing [3] [5]. CRS and Pew have already extracted and visualized parts of this series for public audiences [2] [1].
8. Limits of available reporting and what’s not answered here
Available sources do not mention a single, preformatted FY1990–FY2024 table embedded in these search snippets; to produce an exact year‑by‑year list you must download CBP’s dataset or the CRS/Pew graphics derived from it [3] [2] [1]. Sources here also do not provide a reconciled count that removes repeat encounters to show unique individuals—outside estimates (e.g., USAFacts modeling) attempt that but are methodologically distinct [9].
Conclusion: The fiscal‑year series since 1990 shows wide swings tied to policy, enforcement and public‑health actions; authoritative annual counts live on CBP’s data portals, while CRS, Pew, and independent groups provide interpretation and alternative calculations that reflect different assumptions about encounters versus unique entries [3] [2] [1].