How many undocumented immigrants came in in Trump‘s first term
Executive summary
There is no authoritative, published count of the net number of undocumented immigrants who “came in” during Donald Trump’s first term; government statistics track encounters, apprehensions and removals rather than unique net inflows, so estimates rely on imperfect proxies and scholarly inference [1] [2]. Available data and expert analysis suggest that flows at the southwest border fell sharply early in the term, rose again through 2019 into 2020, and that the undocumented population overall was relatively stable or may have declined modestly by the end of Trump’s term — but a precise numeric answer is not supported by the public record [3] [4] [5].
1. What the question really asks and why it’s hard to answer
As phrased, “How many undocumented immigrants came in in Trump’s first term” seeks a net-count of people who entered and remained during 2017–2020, but U.S. agencies do not publish a direct tally of unique unauthorized entrants who settled in the country; instead, Customs and Border Protection reports “encounters” and apprehensions that can double-count people who try multiple times, while DHS and independent researchers publish deportation and removal totals — none of which equals net additions to the undocumented population [1] [2].
2. What the official indicators show about flows and enforcement
Border apprehensions and encounters dropped sharply after Trump took office, then rose month-by-month through late 2019 and into 2020 before hitting pandemic lows, with apprehension counts rising to roughly 71,000–75,000 per month by the end of Trump’s term — figures that show activity levels but not unique newcomers who stayed [3] [2]. Pew Research Center has tracked border apprehensions, ICE arrests and deportations to show how enforcement and encounters changed under Trump, but those series are separate measures and do not translate into a clean net-inflow number [4].
3. What independent analysts and think tanks conclude
Some analysts conclude the undocumented population was largely stabilized or modestly reduced during Trump’s first term: Cato argues Trump substantially reduced legal immigration while the unauthorized population stabilized, not collapsed [6], and Pew’s later work noted that the undocumented population began to decline during Trump’s presidency, even as encounter metrics fluctuated [5]. These assessments rely on combining survey, administrative and demographic modeling rather than one-to-one counts of people entering and remaining [5] [6].
4. How political claims have skewed the public picture
Political actors have frequently conflated encounters, apprehensions or cumulative counts of attempted crossings with net population change; fact-checkers flagged misleading graphics and selective use of monthly apprehension lows to claim record reductions [2]. The Trump White House and allied outlets have touted dramatic drops in “illegal encounters” at times, while other fact-checkers and PBS noted the pattern of an early drop followed by a steady rise and then a pandemic-induced fall — demonstrating competing agendas in how the same data are framed [7] [3].
5. Bottom line and what the public record supports
The public record does not support a single, authoritative number for how many undocumented immigrants “came in” during 2017–2020; the best-supported conclusions are that border activity fell then rose during Trump’s first term, removals and enforcement changed, legal immigration fell sharply, and demographic estimates imply the undocumented population was roughly in the 11–12 million range and may have edged down during his term — but a definitive net-entry count cannot be computed from published government series alone [6] [4] [5] [1]. Any precise-sounding figure offered without transparent methodology should be treated skeptically given the data limitations documented by researchers and fact‑checkers [1] [2].