How to Understand Border Crossing Numbers
Immigration reporter Alicia Caldwell on how to read the numbers
Alicia Caldwell has covered immigration since 2005, when she became the AP correspondent in El Paso, Texas.
Currently working for Bloomberg News in Los Angeles, Caldwell says she “learned on the fly” as the beat moved from migration to the post-9/11 security debate to the concerns over drug cartels.
“While each president uses different language to address concerns at the border, the issues have remained by and large the same,” she said. “What's changed is access to data.”
We talked with Caldwell about how to interpret border crossing numbers.
What is the best source for border crossing numbers? Where, specifically, would you find them?
There has never been more immigration and border data available than right now. At the moment, Customs and Border Protection publishes detailed datasets about who is crossing the border and where on a monthly basis. The CBP landing page for monthly data is here and the data is searchable for the current fiscal year and the prior three full years.
The data can be searched by northern or southern border and by agency -- the US Border Patrol or Customs and Border Protection's Office of Field Operations.
Historical Border Patrol data is found here.
OFO data prior to 2017 is not available that I have found.
And thanks to a minor miracle, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University is back online after a mercifully brief hiatus. Researchers there have for many years been maintaining a host of standing FOIAs on a variety of federal data, with a huge trove of facts and figures on immigration.
This include immigration court data and updates on the court backlog, rulings by judges and overall outcome rates.
You can compare some of the court data to the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.
You will quickly notice that the data directly from EOIR – TRAC reports are sourced from EOIR data via FOIAs – is far less detailed. I find using both offers the best full picture.
What are the different numbers that are available?
The current data sets — including the nationwide encounters landing page — includes both U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection's Office of Field Operations. The OFO figures represent activity at legal border crossings and is an accounting of how many foreigners were denied entry or otherwise deemed inadmissible to the US at those crossings in a given month. In the last year of the Biden administration that included the 1,450 people a day who were allowed to use the CBP One app to make an appointment to ask for asylum.
The Border Patrol data all involves apprehensions between the ports of entry — folks who crossed without permission and either surrendered or got caught.
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What are some ways in which presidential administrations may cite those data differently that you should watch out for?
This is where things get complicated. Prior to the first Trump administration data was generally not available on how many people were stopped at legal border crossings. So it's best, in my experience, to treat as separate Border Patrol and OFO figures and avoid historic comparisons beyond 2017.
One important reason for the distinction — beyond the lack of historic data — is that the Trump administration showed more than any other prior administration that access to ports can be strictly limited. During Trump's first term many migrants were effectively held at bay in Mexico, given a number and told to wait — administration officials at the time in fact directed migrants to ports, saying that was the only legal way to seek asylum, despite U.S. law allowing for migrants to ask for protection regardless of how they arrived.
During COVID, under both Trump and Biden, access to the ports was also closed to anyone who could not show a travel document -- a visa, greencard, U.S. passport.
The flip side of that, of course, is that Border Patrol arrests are something of a wildcard, with volumes fluctuating and subject to spikes.
Going forward into the new Trump administration it will also be important to note how Border Patrol arrests are recorded: be it traditional, Title 8 civil immigration arrest that historically comes with a host of rules, or as an expulsion under some other immigration provision.
The reason those distinctions are important is they offer a window into how the administration is managing populations at the border.
Are there any other pitfalls in looking at this data to keep in mind?
The greatest pitfall to watch for is comparing the broader CBP totals to anything beyond 2017. I would also caution against using the nationwide figure for both OFO and Border Patrol without fully explaining what the figure is and its lack of historic context.
Any other tips for looking at border crossing data?
Unfortunately, immigration is complicated. And explaining what's happening at the border isn't as simple as just presenting the monthly arrest data. In my experience, it's best to explain each data set as its own and make it as simple as you can for readers or viewers.