15 million illegals entered the U.S. during the Biden Administration.

Question

I guess you missed the 15 million illegals entering the country during the Biden Administration or the leftist riots in 2020?

Answer 1

The claim that “15 million illegals entered the country during the Biden administration” while also referring to “leftist riots in 2020” is just completely untrue. Although the original post has been taken down after reviewing official government data while also doing some independent fact-checking, I found that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports millions of border encounters from 2021–2024 (https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters), but these  encounters do not represent unique individuals and they can often include repeat crossings and people who were expelled or removed. The Department of Homeland Security also states that encounter totals should not be interpreted as the number of undocumented immigrants who entered and remained in the U.S. (https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics). Secondary analyses from Snopes and CBS News explain that the “15 million” is a number that is often created by combining encounters, estimates of “gotaways,” and repeat crossings, which leads to an exaggerated number of people who entered and stayed in the country (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/million-migrants-border-biden/; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/immigration-border-encounters-explainer/). Regarding 2020, there is zero evidence or correlation that link “leftist riots” and border patrol encounters. The claim that these “leftist riots” had anything to do with immigration is completely misleading.

Answer 2

15 million immigrants did not enter the country during the Biden administration. That number is based on the "encounters" of border agents and immigrants. They have been made to sound like all of them are crossing but the 15 million number also includes people who been sent back, legal refugees, and repeat offenders, etc. Here is my source : https://cmsny.org/correcting-record-false-misleading-statements-on-immigration/

 

Comments

Hi! It might be a good idea to also add that the Trump administration had a nearly 52.2 to 48.6% higher number of immigrants in comparison to the Biden administration. The statistic is in the same article that you linked.

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Good assertion, your source looks very trustworthy and includes plenty of sources within it's own right. I believe it may be beneficial to clarify what the actual number of estimated immigrants are in addition to what you mentioned.

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This is a good and to the point response, the original post misuses the data of encounters with the amount of immigrants actually illegally entering the country. I do believe to improve your response that some specific quotations from the source to emphasize the largely exaggerated claim made by the original post, yet this still is a clear and concise retort.

Answer 3

This claim that 15 million immigrants illegally entered the country during Biden's administration is misleading and untrue. While the original post this information was taken from is no longer active, after doing some of my own digging, I found that the Department of Homeland Security reported that 8 million illegal immigrants entered the country during Biden's administration. What is misleading about this is that they include border "encounters," meaning immigrants who were encountered and returned before entering. Similarly, they counted every encounter, even if it was from the same offender, which increased that number by around 20-25%. Moreover, it was stated that the Trump administration released a higher number of migrants into the country than the Biden administration, by 52.2 percent to 48.6 percent over two years. For my secondary source, I confirmed this by looking at the Migration Policy Institute, which estimated an even lower number of around 5.7 million. Migration Policy Institute is an nonparisan independent source that focuses on providing information rather than forcing a political agenda. Here are my sources.

https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/immigration-enforcement/monthly-tables

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/fy2024-us-border-encounters-plunge

 

Answer 4

This post on BlueSky claims that during the Biden Administration, 15 million illegal immigrants entered the country. According to the official border and customs protection reports from 2017 to 2024, there were only 2.7 million border encounters. Considering that this is many more years than the Biden administration, but far less than 15 million illegal encounters its fair to conclude that the statement that "15 million illegals entered the country during the Biden Administration" is very exaggerated.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/cbp-enforcement-statistics-fy22