The true scale of migrant crossings under Kamala Harris revealed

Democrats accused of ‘laundering’ figures, which are 25pc higher if you include ‘gotaways’

The number of migrants who have crossed illegally into the US under Kamala Harris is 25 per cent higher than official figures suggest, The Telegraph can reveal.
Almost nine million people have headed across the border since Ms Harris became vice-president and was tasked with tackling the “root causes” of illegal immigration from Central America more than three years ago.
Critics accused the White House of attempting to “launder” migration figures and deliberately misrepresent its record on border security.
Data released monthly by US Customs and Border Protection shows some 7.15 million people tried to enter the country illegally since Joe Biden and Ms Harris had their first full month in office.
However, when immigration data is collated every month it does not include those who evaded detection by Border Patrol, known as “gotaways”.
A Freedom of Information request submitted by The Telegraph shows that the agency calculates an extra 1.8 million migrants crossed the US’s southern, northern and coastal borders without being apprehended between February 2021 and September 2024.
Owing to the nature of their entry, the exact routes used by those who manage to evade the border force are not always known.
Simon Hankinson, an immigration research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said: “I think it is a deliberate obfuscation. They have essentially laundered illegal immigration.”
Previous administrations have also released figures on migrant encounters rather than gotaways, including under Donald Trump.
Mr Hankinson said: “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.”
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.
Republican critics claim the vice-president is a failed “border tsar” who has struggled to get a grip on illegal crossings. Polling shows that immigration is one of the top priorities for voters and that they have more confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the issue.
However, the number of gotaways surged under Trump’s use of Title 42 expulsions during the Covid pandemic, when asylum seekers were deported without a hearing.
Under Trump, monthly gotaways rose from 13,604 in March 2020 to 37,479 in the space of a year.
When the expulsion practice was ended by Mr Biden in May 2023 this fell from 56,003 to 30,116 the following month. The number of gotaways to September 2024 is less than half of the same period the previous 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, calling the practice “self-defeating”.
“At the same time, you’re giving them no reason to turn themselves in to the Border Patrol because you’re saying you can’t apply for asylum.”
Crossings at the US-Mexico border accounted for the vast majority of the gotaways, Victor Manjarrez, a former Border Patrol chief for the Arizona sector, said, adding people-smuggling gangs took advantage of the vast areas of desert to cross undetected.
“It’s challenging to the US 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.
Mr Manjarrez added that people-smuggling gangs would simply watch for the “dust clouds” produced by Border Patrol vehicles heading across the desert from miles away and hide before agents arrived.
“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.