The CBP is the Customs and Border Enforcement Agency. The CBO is the Congressional Budget Office
People Not Encountering a CBP Official. CBO estimates that an additional 860,000 people in the other-foreign-national category crossed a U.S. border without encountering a CBP official in fiscal year 2023. That total 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 (sometimes referred to as “got-aways”), as well as estimates of the number of people who crossed the border without being observed or detected.
Although DHS publishes estimated counts of people in the first group, it had not released its official estimates for fiscal year 2023 at the time CBO made its projection, in November 2023. Instead, CBO’s estimate is based partly on testimony by the Secretary of DHS, who said that more than 600,000 such people entered the United States in 2023.
Additionally, according to media reports, Border Patrol officials indicated that the number was 770,000 people in 2023. Using those numbers, CBO estimated that there were 750,000 people in the first group in fiscal year 2023.
To account for the second group, people who crossed the border but were not observed or detected by CBP officials, CBO then adjusted the estimate of 750,000 people upward by 15 percent (or 110,000 people), to 860,000 people, following testimony by the Chief of the Border Patrol, who said that the estimated number probably undercounted those people by 10 percent to 20 percent.
People Overstaying Their Temporary Status. CBO estimates that 430,000 people who previously resided in the country legally in a temporary status remained after that legal status expired in fiscal year 2023. CBO developed that estimate from DHS’s data, which indicated that nearly 800,000 people may have overstayed (known as “suspected in-country overstays” in the data) in fiscal year 2022.
By CBO’s estimate, the number of people who overstayed in 2023 was about the same as in 2022, and CBO adjusted the estimate from DHS downward because some of those people may have overstayed for only a short time.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 