How Biden and Trump compare on border crossings and immigration

The Explainer

Immigration ranks in several major polls as the No. 1 national concern for voters leading into this year’s U.S. presidential election. That amplifies the question, how does the rate of illegal immigration under President Joe Biden compare with that under his predecessor and likely opponent, Donald Trump?

Republicans blame the record levels of illegal immigration on President Biden softening U.S. border security and reversing Trump policies they say had been effective at decreasing flows. Democrats, who describe former President Trump’s policies as inhumane, say the GOP is inflating both the numbers and the blame – and ignoring the impact of a rise in forced global migration. 

A March report from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute says that “the rapid increase in arrivals in recent years reflects ongoing crises in the Americas” and instability elsewhere in the world. Other reasons cited include a strong U.S. economy, sophisticated smuggling networks, and the perception that the Biden administration’s policies are more welcoming. 

Republicans focus on another explanation. They say Mr. Biden has taken 64 actions, including revoking numerous Trump policies, that have incentivized illegal immigration and undermined border security. 

Here we examine the available data, as well as key immigration and border policies under each presidency. 

Q: How do the Trump and Biden levels of illegal immigration compare?

The U.S. government does not publish data on the net number of migrants who enter illegally and remain in the country. The main metric U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) tracks is how many “encounters” there are between its agents and migrants seeking to cross illegally. (This is a measure of individuals encountered, so if Border Patrol encounters a group of 10 migrants, that counts as 10 encounters.)

Under the Biden administration, there have been 6.4 million encounters outside official ports of entry along the southern border so far, with the yearly average more than quadruple that of the Trump administration, according to a Monitor analysis of CBP data. 

In addition, CBP agents have registered more than 1.6 million encounters at official ports of entry with migrants deemed “inadmissible,” some of whom are allowed to temporarily enter the country.

Border Patrol also tracks “gotaways,” migrants seen crossing by border agents who are too occupied to respond, or picked up by cameras and sensors. Those totaled nearly 400,000 for the most recent fiscal year reported, 2021, which is more than double the highest annual total during the Trump administration. There is also an unquantifiable number of undetected gotaways.

Some Republicans claim that Mr. Biden has let in as many as 8 million or 9 million migrants. However, it’s not accurate to simply add up encounters and gotaways as a proxy for illegal immigration. 

One reason is that since the pandemic, more migrants have tried multiple times to enter, inflating the number of encounters. Also, many of the encountered migrants aren’t permitted to stay in the country. 

Others gain legal status. Hundreds of thousands have claimed asylum and been allowed to remain while their cases are pending. Furthermore, migrants arriving at ports of entry are often participating in humanitarian parole programs, which the Biden administration expanded and considers a method of legal immigration. A federal judge upheld one such parole program in March. 

Some groups have tried to gauge the net number of people who cross into the United States illegally and remain in the country, despite lack of government data. Last year, the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter border control, gave a preliminary estimate that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. rose by 2.4 million (to 12.6 million total) in the first 27 months of the Biden presidency. Recent research by investment bank Goldman Sachs said the rise in unauthorized immigration was a key factor in driving net immigration to its highest level in two decades last year. 

The Migration Policy Institute, meanwhile, estimated the 2021 unauthorized immigrant population at 11.2 million and noted “larger annual growth than at any point since 2015.” The institute indicated that while that could increase the overall population of unauthorized immigrants, the net change depends on numerous factors, including emigration rates.

Overall, illegal crossings have increased significantly during the Biden administration, but some Republicans are overestimating the net influx of unauthorized migrants.

Q: How have asylum policies changed under each administration?

Mr. Trump significantly limited the ability of migrants to claim asylum, or protection in the U.S. due to persecution or a credible fear of persecution in their home countries.  

Under the Trump administration, migrants were deemed ineligible for asylum if, after leaving their home countries, they had traveled through one other country or more before reaching the U.S. without applying for asylum in at least one. 

The Biden administration has kept a portion of that ban intact, but only for migrants who enter outside official ports of entry. It now allows asylum-seekers – regardless of whether they have applied in third countries – to make an appointment at a U.S. port of entry through the expanded use of a CBP phone app. Another key difference is that Mr. Trump also required some asylum-
seekers to remain in Mexico instead of the U.S. while their cases were pending, a policy that the Biden administration ended in 2022.  

The number of people granted asylum per year dipped during Mr. Biden’s first year in office, after the global pandemic shutdown, but then more than doubled in his second year. While the number granted asylum is not yet available for 2023, the number of asylum applications U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received that year was nearly double a record high from the year before, compounding court backlogs.

Q: What is immigration “parole,” and how have Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump used it? 

The Immigration and Nationality Act has for decades granted presidential administrations discretion to temporarily allow entry to noncitizens via parole “only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” 

Senate Republicans say President Biden has abused that provision to welcome immigrants en masse. In January 2023, his administration created a program that allows up to 30,000 total individuals each month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to travel to the U.S. and seek parole. 

Some 301,000 migrants were paroled at official ports of entry in fiscal 2023; the highest annual total under Mr. Trump was 75,000. 

Parole has traditionally occurred at official ports of entry, including airports. In a significant shift, the Biden administration has also granted parole in between ports of entry, allowing in nearly 290,000 such migrants during the first two years, according to government data compiled by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research center at Syracuse University.

Q: What makes it difficult to tally the current number of unauthorized immigrants? 

The most obvious reason is that Border Patrol doesn’t catch or even see every migrant who crosses illegally. 

Second, many unauthorized immigrants came to the U.S. legally but overstayed their visa or other provision for legal residence. 

Third, people flow out of the U.S. as well as in, with emigration fueled by migrants’ decisions to return to countries of origin or by enforcement policies.

Fourth, while the U.S. government publishes the number of encounters, it does not specify how many unique individuals are encountered, or how many of those encountered are allowed to remain in the country, making it impossible to calculate the precise scope of net illegal immigration.

Under the pandemic-era rule known as Title 42, in place until May 2023, Border Patrol agents could expel migrants on public health grounds. But migrants could try again without penalty, driving a fourfold increase in people trying to enter the U.S. illegally more than once per fiscal year. The rate rose to 27% in 2021, from 7% in 2019. 

Bottom line: While we don’t know exactly how many unauthorized immigrants are added to the U.S. population each year, an array of different metrics signals a significant increase under Mr. Biden.