The Congressional Budget Office estimates that border officials witnessed but did not catch 860,000 illegal immigrants crossing into the United States last year, more than double the number of “gotaways” who entered when President Joe Biden entered office and dismantled border policies.
In its new Demographic Outlook: 2024 to 2054, the CBO explained that the 860,000 “comprises people who were directly or indirectly observed making an unlawful entry, who were not turned back or apprehended, and who are no longer being pursued by the Border Patrol.”
By comparison, there were 389,515 gotaways in fiscal 2021 and nearly 600,000 in fiscal 2022.
That is on top of hundreds of thousands the administration concedes it encountered and let into the U.S. and the 430,000 who overstayed their visas last year.