Illegal Border Crossings, Driven by Pandemic and Natural Disasters, Soar to Record High

Migrants were encountered 1.7 million times in the last 12 months, the highest number of illegal crossings recorded since at least 1960.
Of the more than 17,000 Haitian migrants who crossed last month, 36 percent were turned away under a public health rule in place since the start of the pandemic.Credit...Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York Times

By Eileen Sullivan and Miriam Jordan
Oct. 22, 2021


A record 1.7 million migrants from around the world, many of them fleeing pandemic-ravaged countries, were encountered trying to enter the United States illegally in the last 12 months, capping a year of chaos at the southern border, which has emerged as one of the most formidable challenges for the Biden administration.

It was the highest number of illegal crossings recorded since at least 1960, when the government first began tracking such entries. The number was similarly high for the 2000 fiscal year, when border agents caught 1.6 million people, according to government data.

Single adults represented the largest group of those detained in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, at 1.1 million, or 64 percent of all crossers. There were also large numbers of migrant families — more than 479,000, which is about 48,000 fewer than during the last surge in family crossings in 2019.

But the nearly 147,000 children whom agents encountered without parents or guardians was the largest number since 2008, when the government started tallying unaccompanied minors. Finding shelter for these migrant children, until they can be released to relatives or other sponsors in the country, was one of the president’s earliest challenges. As of Friday, nearly 11,000 remained in government custody.

The crossers hailed from around the globe, many of them seeking economic opportunity as the coronavirus pandemic erased hundreds of millions of jobs. Agents caught people from more than 160 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, with Mexico accounting for the largest share.

A public health rule, invoked by President Donald J. Trump at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 to seal the border, has remained in place under the Biden administration. Over the last 12 months, the Border Patrol has carried out more than one million expulsions of migrants back to Mexico or to the migrants’ home countries. Agents used the public health rule to expel migrants they encountered 61 percent of the time and to expel families 26 percent of the time.

President Biden has walked a fine line between trying to control the influx and put in place a more humane approach to border enforcement. Republicans have blamed Mr. Biden’s promises to reverse Trump-era immigration policies for fueling the surge, as word spread that the country’s borders had become easier to breach.