Every month, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) releases statistics on attempts to enter the U.S. illegally. From February 2021 to September 2024, the number of illegals caught while entering the country was 7.5 million.
However, a Freedom of Information Act request from the UK Telegraph shows a strikingly different number. More than 1.8 million additional illegals crossed the border without being apprehended. These "gotaways" enter through a variety of illegal entry points including unguarded points in the Southern border, illegal crossings on the Northern border with Canada, and illegal port entries.
No administration ever includes the gotaways number, largely because it is guesswork. But in recent years, the border coverage by sophisticated cameras, including infrared cameras, has allowed a much more accurate count of gotaways. Still, the current administration refuses to include the gotaways number with the official stats.
Simon Hankinson, an immigration research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said: “I think it is a deliberate obfuscation. They have essentially laundered illegal immigration.”
“Gotaways, almost by definition, are going to be more likely to have criminal records and to be undesirable than people who show up and surrender to the border force," says Hankinson.
Jason Owens, the head of Border Patrol, told CBS News in February that he lay awake at night worrying about the number of “gotaways” and considered the situation a “national security threat."
“What do they have to hide? What are they bringing in? What is their intent? Where are they coming from?” he said. “We simply don’t know the answers to those questions.”
The proportion of immigrants apprehended under both Mr Biden and Trump, was around eight in 10 – more than double the number under George W Bush in the early 2000s. The majority of migrants encountered at the US-Mexico border from 2021 to 2023 were either deported or immediately turned back.
Ms Harris has pledged to tighten border security and bar migrants from the US who cross illegally if she wins the presidential election in November.
Donald Trump's use of Title 42 immigration restrictions cut the number of asylum seekers to the bone. But gotaways under Trump soared. Gotaways rose from 13,604 in March 2020 to 37,479 in less than a year.
“The big factor, from an enforcement perspective, was that Title 42 just put the person in position to try again,” David J Bier, an immigration expert with the Cato Institute, explained. He called the practice “self-defeating."
“At the same time, you’re giving them no reason to turn themselves into the Border Patrol because you’re saying you can’t apply for asylum.”
Victor Manjarrez, a former Border Patrol chief for the Arizona sector, said that crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border accounted for the vast majority of the gotaways.
“It’s challenging to the U.S. Border Patrol because surveillance capabilities are not as robust, the terrain is rough – making it difficult to patrol via vehicle – and the density of border patrol agents is not as deep,” he said.
Indeed, long stretches of the Southern border are desert and mountainous. Camera coverage is not as good as elsewhere, and there are few roads.
“Gotaways” data is an estimate made by Customs and Border Protection based on a range of factors including CCTV footage, motion sensors, aerial surveillance, footprints, and holes made in border defences.
The figures obtained by The Telegraph have not been finalised and will be subject to adjustment under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy, it is understood.
The DHS and Harris campaign declined to comment.
The Southern U.S. border is nearly 2,000 miles. The Northern border is 5,500 miles. It's nearly impossible to adequately patrol both borders. But we can do a damn sight better to keep people who shouldn't 't be in the United States from entering.
