More than 12 million people illegally crossed the border into the U.S. from 2021 to May 2024, when Joe Biden took office, data obtained by The Center Square shows.

These calculations include the figures from May, when 241,000 people were detained after entering the country illegally, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP).

The May figures raised the total number of apprehensions and encounters of people crossing the border illegally to more than 2.2 million in the first eight months of fiscal year 2024. A figure that, if added to all the illegal crossings that have occurred since fiscal year 2021, reaches 12 million illegal crossings if the famous “escapes” are counted.

In fact, according to official CBP data from fiscal year 2021 to the most recent data, the number of illegal border crossers apprehended or encountered totals 10,147,015. Two million less than the unofficial figures.

According to analysis by The Center Square, the official data excludes "escapees," the official term of immigration authorities for foreigners who enter the U.S. illegally through the ports of entry and do not return to Mexico or Canada. Therefore the official figure is not entirely accurate.

Now, although CBP does not make the leak data public, The Center Square, citing a Border Patrol agent, managed to obtain the figure that is handled internally in the agency: between fiscal year 2021 and the current fiscal year, approximately two million people entered the country illegally and did not leave for Mexico or Canada, representing the “escapees” statistic.

This figure is surprising. Especially if you consider that, in 2021, President Joe Biden presented a plan to regularize the 11 million undocumented migrants who are in the United States.

That is, in less than four years, under Biden's watch the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States doubled according to unofficial estimates and is about to double based on official CBP data.

Likewise, it should also be factored in that CBP's fiscal year has not yet ended. It always starts on October 1 and ends on September 30, so the numbers of illegal crossings will surely have grown even more just before the presidential elections in November, where border security is one of the issues that matters most to voters, according to national surveys.