The flow of illegal immigrants across the southern border has markedly increased over the last several years. In FY2021, Border Patrol had 1,659,206 encounters with illegal immigrants and other border crossers along the southwest land border, which grew to 2,206,436 in FY2022, and 2,045,838 in FY2023. From a low of less than 20,000 in April 2020, due in large part to the pandemic-induced collapse in employment, encounters have risen steadily and began to rise even faster after President Biden took office. Read more about The US Labor Market Explains Most of the Increase in Illegal Immigration