he number of illegal border crossings at the northern and southern borders and all ports of entry since January 2021 totals more than 8 million people, greater than the individual populations of 38 U.S. states.
Put another way, the number of foreign nationals from all over the world believed to be primarily illegally entering the U.S. is comparable to the populations of eight Delawares, four New Mexicos, two Oklahomas or more than 13 Wyomings.
While most media attention has focused on southern, and more recently, northern border encounters, these numbers don’t account for all nationwide U.S. Customs and Border Protection encounters. CBP’s 20 sectors include U.S. territories and ports of entries nationwide that aren’t solely located at the northern and southern borders.
In an interview with The Center Square, former acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan, who was also chief of U.S. Border Patrol, delved into the numbers.
“The issue I run into all the time is people only count Border Patrol apprehensions or southwest border encounters only,” he told The Center Square. “Both fail to provide the total encounters by CBP, especially [when these numbers don’t account for] the unlawful use of the CBP OneApp and parole” policies being implemented by the Biden administration, he said. “All ports of entry, not just southwest border land ports of entry are being used to facilitate encounters.”
According to publicly available CBP data, national apprehensions/encounters include those reported at all air, sea, and land ports of entry. With CBP’s fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, as of June 7, total nationwide encounters for fiscal 2021 was 1,684,586 (from January, when Biden took office, to September 2021); 2,766,582 for fiscal 2022 and 2,096,346 so far for fiscal 2023 through May.
In the first 28 months of the Biden administration, total CBP encounters nationwide are at least 6,547,514 (January 2021 through May 2023).
