How many undocumented migrants crossed the US border annually during the Biden administration by fiscal year?
Executive summary
From the available government and think‑tank reporting, the Biden years saw millions of Border Patrol “encounters” each fiscal year, but the precise number of distinct undocumented people who “crossed” is smaller and uncertain because federal data count events (encounters, apprehensions, expulsions, “gotaways”) not unique individuals [1] [2]. Public sources place annual Border Patrol encounters in the hundreds of thousands to more than a million per fiscal year and sum to roughly 9–11 million encounters between FY2021 and mid‑2024 depending on the dataset and definitions used [3] [1].
1. What the headline numbers in the record mean — encounters vs. people
Federal and analytical sources use “encounters” — each time someone is stopped, processed, expelled or otherwise detected — which can count repeat crossings by the same person multiple times; therefore encounter totals are not a direct headcount of unique individuals who entered the United States [1] [2]. Policymakers and advocates also point to “gotaways” (detections not resulting in an apprehension) and expulsions under Title 42 as separate categories; all three move the conversation but measure different operational outcomes, complicating any straight answer about “how many people crossed” [4] [2].
2. Fiscal Year 2021: a pandemic‑era surge measured in arrests and encounters
Border Patrol’s operations in FY2021 recorded historically high arrest and encounter activity, with one widely cited summary noting more than 1.7 million Border Patrol arrests at the U.S.–Mexico border in fiscal year 2021 — a record figure that reflects a mix of single crossings and repeat attempts counted as separate events [2]. That same reporting and contemporary DHS data show Title 42 expulsions and repeat attempts inflated encounter totals during the pandemic period [1].
3. Fiscal Year 2022 and FY2023: gotaways and rising encounters
Congressional testimony and compilations report large numbers of “gotaways” in FY2022 (about 599,000) and at least 385,000 in FY2023 as estimated by Border Patrol leadership, alongside continued high encounter volumes — contributing to multi‑million cumulative encounter totals under the administration [4] [2]. Aggregated estimates of encounters from FY2021 through February 2024 put the total at roughly 9.4 million, underscoring that the Biden years produced very large operational counts though not a one‑to‑one count of distinct entrants [3].
4. Fiscal Year 2024 and the counting contest
Reporting from late 2024 and analyses in 2025 highlight that FY2024 remained a high‑volume year for removals and encounters, with some outlets and government statements citing large deportation totals and continued encounters; critics and congressional offices used these same administrative numbers to claim multi‑million totals “since Biden took office,” while independent aggregators note variation depending on whether “gotaways,” expulsions, and repeat encounters are included [5] [6] [1]. Migration Policy’s synthesis through early 2024 and subsequent DHS/ICE press pieces show the data are elastic depending on methodology [3] [7].
5. How to read the fiscal‑year table that cannot be compiled precisely from available sources
The sources provided give strong, consistent evidence that FY2021–FY2024 each saw hundreds of thousands to over a million border encounters annually and that the sum of encounters across those years is in the multi‑millions (commonly cited ranges are roughly 9–11 million encounters from FY2021 through mid‑2024) but they do not supply a single authoritative per‑fiscal‑year table of unique people crossing the border; analysts warn that converting encounters into unique person counts without additional methodology will mislead [3] [1] [2].
6. Bottom line and caveats
Answering “how many undocumented migrants crossed the US border annually during the Biden administration by fiscal year” depends on which metric is used: Border Patrol “encounters” produced yearly counts in the hundreds of thousands to over a million and aggregate to roughly 9–11 million encounters from FY2021 through mid‑2024 [3] [1], “gotaways” numbered in the hundreds of thousands across FY2021–FY2023 [4] [2], and unique individuals who successfully entered and remained cannot be derived directly from these encounter figures without further, transparent statistical adjustments [1]. The reporting cited reflects contested interpretations and political framing by House and Senate offices, DHS and independent analysts — all of which must be reconciled before any single fiscal‑year “people crossed” table can be presented as definitive [6] [8] [3].