There isn’t a single, definitive illegal immigration rate because it’s difficult to track people entering the country outside official channels. However, we can look at two ways to measure the issue:
Numbers encountered at the border:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) tracks the number of people apprehended or encountered trying to enter the country illegally.
Fiscal Year 2023 (ending September 2023) saw a record number of these encounters, surpassing 3.2 million [source about FY 2023 encounters].
December 2023 also set a monthly record with over 371,000 encounters [source about December 2023 encounters].
Estimated population of undocumented immigrants:
Researchers try to estimate the total number of people living in the country without authorization.
The Pew Research Center estimated the unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. to be around 10.5 million in 2021 [source about unauthorized immigrant population].
Note: Considering these figures come from different sources and measuring different things is essential.
Keep this in mind when evaluating information about illegal immigration.