FY23 Enforcement Lifecycle Report

Executive Summary

This report describes the ‘start-to-finish’ Enforcement Lifecycle for noncitizens[1] encountered at the U.S. Southwest Border (SWB) between the start of fiscal year (FY) 2014 and the end of FY 2023, describing enforcement outcomes through December 31, 2023 (i.e., through the first quarter of FY 2024).[2] Traditionally, border encounters are reported on an event-count basis, describing annual number of enforcement-related events (e.g., apprehensions, removals, credible fear claims, asylum grants). In contrast, the Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) Enforcement Lifecyle analysis reports on enforcement outcomes, linking person-level events across different datasets to describe the results of a noncitizen’s movement through the entire immigration enforcement system.

While event-count reporting provides information on the operational workload and agency accomplishments at each stage of the immigration enforcement process, outcome reporting describes how the U.S. immigration enforcement system operates in its entirety and its impact on individuals.

At a high level, all individual border encounters eventually may be resolved in one of two ways: 1) repatriation[3] (expulsion, removal, or return) out of the United States, or 2) a grant of relief or other protection from removal or a termination of removal proceedings allowing the noncitizen to remain the United States. In practice, border encounters often remain unresolved for many years, either in a pending status awaiting the resolution of a removal process or subject to an unexecuted order of removal or grant of voluntary departure.

Overall, 53 percent of SWB encounters[4] occurring between 2014 and 2023, resulted in repatriation; 6.9 percent resulted in grants of relief or other protection from removal or termination of removal proceedings; and 40 percent remained unresolved as of the end of Calendar Year 2023.[5]

Enforcement outcomes differed substantially by citizenship, particularly between long-standing immigration countries like Mexico compared to newer immigration countries like Nicaragua and Venezuela. For the entire period of this report, Mexican nationals, who make relatively few asylum claims, were much more likely to have been repatriated (92 percent) than citizens of Northern Central American (NCA) countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras) (44 percent), or two groupings of newly prominent migration source states: Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Peru (CDEP) (22 percent) and Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela (CHNV) (11 percent).[6]Most encounters of persons from CHNV (74 percent) and CDEP (68 percent) countries were still being processed as of 2023 year-end, compared to 31 percent of NCA nationals and 5.3 percent of Mexican nationals, which is partly explained by difficulties completing repatriations to these new immigration countries and by the fact that much larger shares of CHNV and CDEP encounters have occurred since 2020, allowing less time for these cases to be resolved. Encounters of NCA nationals were most likely to have resulted in grants of relief or protection from removal or a Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) termination (12 percent), compared to 9.1 percent for CHNV nationals, 3.1 percent for CDEP nationals, and just 1.4 percent for Mexican nationals.

Enforcement also differed as a function of family status due to policy differences, particularly in how adults and children are processed under immigration law. Overall, single adults (SAs) were much more likely to be repatriated (73 percent of encounters) than individuals traveling in family units (FMs)[7] (17percent) or unaccompanied children (UCs) from non-contiguous countries (4.5 percent).[8] Encounters of UCs from non-contiguous countries resulted in grants of relief or protection from removal in 15 percent of cases, compared to 3.5 percent of FM encounters and 1.2percent of SA encounters.

Throughout this report, enforcement outcomes are analyzed within three separate arrival cohorts. The “pre-pandemic period” is defined to include encounters from the start of FY 2014 through March 19, 2020. The “pandemic period” is defined to include encounters from March 20, 2020, through May 11, 2023, the time period during which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assisted in the implementation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) public health Order under Title 42 of the U.S. Code (“Title 42 Order”).[9] And the “post-pandemic period” is defined to include encounters from May 12, 2023, to September 30, 2023.

It is important to note that the cohorts differ with respect to the time lapse between the encounters and enforcement outcomes analyzed in this report. Encounters that occurred during the pre-pandemic period have had significantly more time to progress through the immigration enforcement system compared to cases from the pandemic and post-pandemic periods. Specifically, there is a gap of almost four years from the last pre-pandemic encounter to December 31, 2023, compared to gaps of just under eight months and three months for the pandemic and post-pandemic cohort, respectively.

There are also key substantive differences across the three cohorts, so they were analyzed separately to account for those differences. First, enforcement during the pandemic period was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the CDC order. Half of all SWB encounters during the pandemic were expelled under Title 42 authority. For those who were not expelled, enforcement processing under Title 8 authority was limited by COVID-related policies, including but not limited to restrictions on CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention capacity.

Second, cohorts differed substantially in their demographic make-up. Mexican and NCA nationals accounted for 89 percent of encounters during the pre-pandemic period, compared to 62 percent during the pandemic period and 58 percent during the post-pandemic period. In addition, children and family unit individuals together accounted for half of all encounters during the post-pandemic period, compared to 39 percent during the pre-pandemic and just 27 percent during the pandemic period. These demographic shifts affected overall enforcement outcomes, reflecting t relationships between family status and citizenship and the corresponding enforcement processing described above.

Third, encounters were much higher in the post-pandemic period (an average of 170,000 encounter per month) and the pandemic period (nearly 150,000 encounters per month) than in the pre-pandemic period (48,000 encounter per month). Congressionally appropriated border-related resources have not kept pace with the increasing volume, resulting in a growing backlog of enforcement and removal activities.

These contextual differences contribute to substantial overall differences in enforcement outcomes across the three cohorts:

• For the 3.5 million encounters occurring in the pre-pandemic period of 2014 through March 19, 2020, a majority (55 percent) of encounters had been removed or returned as of December 31, 2023, while 14.6 percent had been granted relief or protection from removal (6.0 percent) or had their cases terminated (8.6 percent), and 30.3 percent remained unresolved, including 16.8 percent still in removal proceedings and 13.5 percent with unexecuted removal orders.[10]
• For the 5.8 million encounters occurring in the pandemic-era period of March 20, 2020, to May 11, 2023, 55.6 percent had been expelled (50.6 percent) or removed or returned (5.0 percent) as of December 31, 2023; 3.0 percent had been granted relief or protection from removal (1.4 percent) or termination of removal proceedings (1.6 percent), and 41.3 percent remained unresolved, including 37.9 percent still being processed and 3.4 percent with unexecuted removal orders.
• Of the more than 730,000 post-pandemic encounters, most cases (73 percent) were still unresolved as of December 31, 2023, while one-quarter (23 percent) had been removed or returned.

The final section of this report specifically examines enforcement trends over time by comparing enforcement outcomes at fixed time intervals following initial encounters. This analysis yields two main findings.

First, noncitizens who are not repatriated within 12 months of initial encounter are very seldom repatriated thereafter. For individuals encountered between 2013 to 2018 (the only encounters for which adequate time has elapsed to conduct a comprehensive analysis), 98 percent of all repatriations that had occurred in the first 5 to 7 years after an encounter took place within the first 12 months of apprehension. Cases unresolved one year after an encounter tend to remain unresolved four to six years later, and if they are resolved it usually results in relief or other protection from removal or termination rather than repatriation.

Second, the immigration enforcement system exhibited a progressively slower case resolution pace each year from 2014 through 2019, the years available for analysis.[11] For the 2014 cohort, 76 percent of SWB encounters were resolved (i.e., repatriation or grant of relief or other protection from removal or termination) within three years, with 24 percent of encounters remaining unresolved (i.e., still being processed for removal or subject to an unexecuted removal order). By 2019, the share of encounters resolved within three years fell to 39 percent, with 61 percent unresolved. In addition to the aforementioned increase in sheer volume of border encounters and insufficient border resources, the slowdown in case resolution times is strongly associated with the changing demographics of border encounters, as encounters of FMs, UCs, and citizens from countries other than Mexico are more likely to remain unresolved compared to encounters involving SAs and Mexican nationals.

1. Methodology

Outcome reporting in the U.S. immigration enforcement system poses a challenge due to its expansive nature, involving three distinct DHS Components and the DOJ EOIR. Each of these entities manages multiple data systems with limited interoperability. Consequently, when a noncitizen is encountered at the SWB and undergoes processes such as claiming fear of return, being booked into ICE custody, appearing before an Immigration Judge (IJ), and ultimately either being repatriated or granted relief or other protection from removal by DOJ or DHS, they may interface with a dozen or more independent data systems.

To address this complexity, OHSS developed the Persist Dataset and the Enforcement Lifecycle. The Persist Dataset links records across 23 operational data systems with a nexus to border enforcement. By incorporating individual and event identifiers from each source system, OHSS matches records and assign a new person-level identifier to each individual present in one or more datasets. The matched records are then organized by unique individual and date, resulting in a comprehensive person-centric record of each substantive event in the enforcement process.

Source Datasets Included in the OHSS Persist Data

• CBP OFO Inadmissible
• CBP OFO Inadmissible
• CBP OFO Title 42 Expulsions
• CBP USBP Apprehensions  
• CBP USBP Title 42 Expulsions
• DOJ EOIR Appeals
• DOJ EOIR Bonds
• DOJ EOIR Case Information
• DOJ EOIR Proceedings
• DOJ EOIR Schedule
• DOJ EOIR Court Application
• ICE ERO Administrative Arrests
• ICE ERO Charging Documents Issued
• ICE ERO Initial Book-In
• ICE Releases/Final Book-Outs
• ICE HSI Administrative and Criminal Arrest
• ICE Alternative to Detention (ATD)
• DHS Removals and Returns
• USCIS Affirmative Asylum
• USCIS Asylum Pre-Screening Office (APSO)
• USCIS Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
• USCIS Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR)
• USCIS Employment Authorization Document (EAD)
• USCIS T and U Visas, and Special Immigrant Juveniles (SIJ)

The Enforcement Lifecycle methodology leverages the Persist Dataset to cluster enforcement events associated with distinct individuals into ‘event cycles.’ Each cycle is defined by an initial enforcement action and any interim enforcement events and/or final enforcement outcomes associated with that initial action:

• Initial enforcement actions encompass the starting points of an enforcement process, including USBP apprehensions, inadmissible applicants for admission at ports of entry, and Title 42 Encounters. These events are considered ‘initial’ because they initiate a process that may lead to a repatriation or to relief or protection from removal or termination of removal proceedings.
• Interim enforcement events encompass all events or actions that provide substantive information about noncitizens’ paths through the immigration enforcement system but do not represent starting or endpoints of an enforcement process.[12] Interim enforcement events are grouped within two broad categories: a) being processed, which include book-ins to ICE detention facilities, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) credible fear screenings, issuance of a Notice to Appear, applications for immigration benefits, and DOJ EOIR hearings, among other events; and b) unexecuted removal orders, which include orders of removal or EOIR grants of voluntary departure without confirmed departures from the United States.
• Final enforcement outcomes encompass the endpoints of an enforcement process, including a) confirmed repatriations and b) grants of relief or protection from removal or terminations of removal proceedings. These events are “final” in that they represent a durable resolution to a particular initial enforcement action.

For each initial enforcement action, the Lifecycle methodology reports the single associated final enforcement outcome if one exists. Event cycles without a final outcome remain unresolved; in which case the Lifecycle methodology assigns a most current interim event, defined as the latest event chronologically within the event cycle.[13] About 0.1 percent of initial enforcement actions are excluded from this report because they cannot be matched to a subsequent event.[14]

Event cycles are reported by cohort, defined as the group of initial enforcement encounters occurring during a given period. These periods include a single fiscal year, the pre-pandemic period (October 1, 2013 – March 19, 2020), the pandemic period (March 20, 2020 – May 11, 2023), and the post-pandemic period (May 12, 2023 – September 30, 2023). When reporting on a cohort, the Lifecycle methodology describes outcomes as of the reporting date—in this report, as of December 31, 2023—regardless of the period that defines the cohort. For example, Enforcement Lifecycle reporting on the 2014 cohort in this report describes final or most current enforcement outcomes as of December 31, 2023, for all encounters occurring in 2014, even though outcomes may have occurred at any time between the start of 2014 and the end of calendar year 2023.

Data presented in this report are structured on an event cycle basis. This means that a noncitizen with multiple encounters at the SWB is accounted for multiple times in both the total number of initial encounters and the total number of final or most current enforcement outcomes associated with each of those encounters.

2. High-Level Enforcement Outcomes

Figure 1 summarizes final or most current outcomes for each cohort from 2014 through 2023 (see Appendix for additional detail). CBP completed 10 million SWB encounters during this ten-year period, of which 29 percent resulted in Title 42 expulsions, 24 percent resulted in Title 8 returns and removals, 2.9 percent had been granted relief or protection from removal, 4.0 percent had resulted in an EOIR termination, 33 percent were still being processed, and 6.8 percent had unexecuted removal orders as of December 31, 2023.

Figure 1.
Final or Most Current Enforcement Outcomes by Encounter Cohort: FY 2014 to FY 2023

Notes: Encounters with no subsequent event are excluded. Outcomes are current as of December 31, 2023.
Source: Office of Homeland Security Statistics Enforcement Lifecycle.

Figure 1 illustrates the extent to which the implementation of the Title 42 public health Order in March 2020 represented a break in Enforcement Lifecycle trends. For encounters occurring in the pre-pandemic era, the proportion of cases that remain unresolved is smallest for the 2014 cohort and increases each year through the 2019 cohort. Beginning with the late 2020 cohort, a large share of encounters was immediately expelled under the Title 42 Order, so far fewer encounters remain unresolved.[15] Beginning in 2021, changing demographics of SWB encounters meant that growing shares of noncitizens were not able to be quickly repatriated, as discussed below, resulting in growing shares of unresolved cases in each subsequent year, as well as during the post-pandemic period.

Figure 2 summarizes overall enforcement outcomes during the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic periods. These three cohorts differed in several important ways. Notably, during the pandemic period, about half of SWB encounters were expelled under Title 42 authority, and encounters processed under Title 8 authority were subject to additional COVID-related provisions. The citizenship and family status make-up of encounters also differed considerably across the three time periods. Additionally, the numbers of border encounters during the pandemic and post-pandemic periods were about three times higher than the pre-pandemic period, without a proportional increase in border enforcement resources. Finally, much more time has elapsed between the pre-pandemic encounters and the as-of date for the cohort analysis in this report. These differences contributed to substantial differences in enforcement outcomes across the three cohorts, as discussed in greater detail below.

For the entire pre-pandemic period (2014 through March 19, 2020), CBP completed 3.5 million encounters along the SWB. A majority (55 percent) of these encounters had resulted in removal or return, 6.0 percent had led to relief or protection from removal, 8.6 percent led to an EOIR termination, 17 percent were still being processed, and 14 percent had resulted in an unexecuted removal order as of December 31, 2023 (Figure 2).

CBP completed 5.8 million encounters during the pandemic period (March 20, 2020, through May 11, 2023). Of these, as of December 31, 2023, 51 percent were immediately expelled under Title 42 authority, 5.0 percent had been returned or removed under Title 8 authority, 1.4 percent had received relief or protection from removal, 1.6 percent had resulted in an EOIR termination, 38 percent were still being processed, and 3.4 percent had an unexecuted order of removal or voluntary departure. Thus, the combined total of expulsions and repatriations accounted for similar shares of encounters during and before the pandemic period, as of December 31, 2023.

Post-pandemic (May 12, 2023, through September 30, 2023), CBP completed 0.7 million encounters. Of these, 27 percent had been returned or removed, and, given the shorter four-and-a-half-month timeframe, 0.2 percent received relief or an EOIR termination, 72 percent were still being processed, and 1.3 percent had an unexecuted order of removal or voluntary departure. See Appendix for detailed outcome tables.

Figure 2.
Final or Most Current Enforcement Outcomes by Time Period: FY 2014 to FY 2023

Notes: Pre-pandemic period includes 2014 through March 19, 2020; pandemic period includes March 20, 2020, through May 11, 2023; post-pandemic period includes May 12, 2023, through September 30, 2023. Encounters with no subsequent event are excluded. Outcomes are current as of December 31, 2023.

Source: Office of Homeland Security Statistics Enforcement Lifecycle.

3. Enforcement Outcomes by Country of Citizenship

This section illustrates enforcement outcomes during the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic periods by country of citizenship, focusing on five country groupings for the purpose of analysis:

• Mexico is considered on its own because it has been and remains the primary country of origin for border encounters. Additionally, the shared southwest land border with Mexico and long history of bilateral dialogue about immigration enforcement facilitate repatriations of Mexican nationals.
• NCA countries are grouped together based on their geographic proximity, closely linked historic migration patterns, and the United States’ generally greater ability to repatriate NCA nationals compared to those from most other countries. For example, prior to the pandemic, the United States established Electronic Nationality Verification agreements with all three NCA countries to streamline the repatriation process. During the pandemic, Mexico and the United States established a special arrangement to allow expulsions of NCA nationals to Mexico.
• CHNV countries are grouped together because nationals from those countries have accounted for a growing share of encounters since the late 2010s, particularly during the pandemic period. Additionally, all four CHNV countries have experienced a mix of political and humanitarian crises and/or poor bilateral relations with the United States, which hinder repatriation. Due to these reasons, the United States has made certain CHNV nationals and their immediate family members eligible to be considered for parole on a case-by-case basis. These processes began in October 2022 for Venezuela and in January 2023 for Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua.
• CDEP countries are grouped together because they also account for a growing share of encounters during the pandemic period, have similar migration dynamics, and are processed in similar ways. However, unlike CHNV countries, they do not face acute repatriation challenges.
• All other countries are grouped together due to their historical low encounter numbers, which account for less than 4.0 percent of encounters in the pre-pandemic period.

The demographics of enforcement encounters to the SWB have undergone a major transition.[16] During the period covered by this report, the share from Mexico and NCA countries has steadily decreased, from 91 percent of encounters during the pre-pandemic period to 62 percent during the pandemic and 57 percent post-pandemic.

Meanwhile the share from CDEP countries has shown a steady increase: from 1.3 percent of pre-pandemic encounters to 10 percent during the pandemic and 14 percent post-pandemic.

The share from CHNV countries experienced a significant rise as well, jumping from 3.1 percent pre-pandemic to 20 percent during the pandemic, followed by a slight decline to 16 percent of encounters post-pandemic. Additionally, the “all other” group has seen an increase from 4.3 percent pre-pandemic to 7.5 percent during the pandemic to 14 percent post-pandemic, approximately equal to the share from CDEP countries post pandemic. Within the ‘other’ category, Asian and African migration has begun to reach notable levels, with countries such as China, India, Senegal, Guinea, and Mauritania becoming key countries to monitor for irregular migration to the United States.

Figure 3.
Final or Most Current Enforcement Outcomes by Time Period and Country of Citizenship:
FY 2014 to FY 2023

Notes: Pre-pandemic period includes 2014 through March 19, 2020; pandemic period includes March 20, 2020, through May 11, 2023; post-pandemic period includes May 12, 2023, through September 30, 2023. Encounters with no subsequent event are excluded. Outcomes are current as of December 31, 2023.

Source: Office of Homeland Security Statistics Enforcement Lifecycle.

As seen in Figure 3, outcomes across country groupings and time periods fall within two different patterns. First, nationals of Mexico and the NCA countries saw repatriations increase during the pandemic. As of December 31, 2023, Mexican nationals went from 91 percent being repatriated for pre-pandemic encounters to 95 percent being repatriated for those encountered during the pandemic period. For NCA nationals, 31 percent of pre-pandemic encounters had been repatriated, rising to 63 percent of pandemic-era encounters being repatriated, in large part due to the implementation of Title 42.

Conversely, the United States has had much more limited ability to expel nationals of countries other than Mexico and NCA under Title 42 authority or to repatriate them under Title 8 authority.[17] All other country groupings saw the share of encounters resulting in repatriations fall during the pandemic. Among CHNV encounters, 21 percent of pre-pandemic encounters had been repatriated as of 2023, falling to 11 percent of pandemic-era encounters. For CDEP encounters, the repatriation rate fell from 36 percent for pre-pandemic encounters to 23 percent for pandemic-era encounters. Repatriations for other countries fell from 20 percent for pre-pandemic encounters to 9.0 percent for pandemic-era encounters.

Across all country groupings, smaller shares of post-pandemic encounters had been repatriated, as most non-Mexican cases were still being processed as of December 31, 2023. The share of post-pandemic encounters that had been repatriated during the very short window included in this analysis fell to 71 percent of Mexican nationals, 17 percent of NCA nationals, 9.0 percent of CDEP nationals, 8.4 percent of CHNV nationals, and 2.7 percent of other country nationals.

Meanwhile, due to the typically lengthy processing times associated with EOIR proceedings, relatively few pandemic-era and almost no post-pandemic encounters have been granted relief or other protection from removal or had EOIR proceedings terminated. Consequently, the relief or termination rate for all country groupings decreased across time periods. Pre-pandemic, Mexico had 3.2 percent of cases resulting in relief or an EOIR termination, declining to 0.3 percent of cases during the pandemic. NCA dropped from 21 to 3.5 percent, CHNV from 42 to 6.9 percent, CDEP from 20 to 2.3 percent, and all other countries from 33 to 5.4 percent respectively. Among post-pandemic encounters, all country groups had fewer than 0.15 percent of cases resulting in relief or an EOIR termination in the handful of months between the end of the pandemic and December 31, 2023.

The remainder of cases were unresolved, either still being processed or with an unexecuted removal order (including in absentia orders). Mexico’s unresolved cases went from 6.1 percent for pre-pandemic encounters to 4.9 percent for pandemic encounters to 29 percent for post-pandemic encounters. For pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic encounters respectively, NCA’s share of unresolved cases fluctuated from 49 percent to 33 percent to 82 percent, CHNV’s share increased from 37 percent to 82 percent to 91 percent, CDEP’s share increased from 43 percent to 75 percent to 91 percent, while all other countries’ share increased from 48 percent to 86 percent to 97 percent.

4. Enforcement Outcomes by Family Status

A second demographic change in recent years has been with respect to family status.[18] While SAs account for at least half of all encounters across all three time periods, UCs and FMs have grown in prominence. FM individuals accounted for growing shares of SWB encounters through the 2010s, peaking at 55 percent of encounters in 2019. After a sharp decline with the onset of the pandemic in 2020 (down to 5.5 percent during the April-September 2020 time period), the share of FM encounters grew back to 24 percent for the pandemic period, and then 43 percent in the post-pandemic period. The overall increase in FM individuals during the pre-pandemic period was primarily driven by NCA countries; but Mexico, CHNV, and CDEP also had growing numbers of FM encounters in the pandemic and post-pandemic periods.

UCs pose substantial challenges for immigration enforcement due to protection laws surrounding the handling of their cases and their unique protection needs. The UC’s share of encounters peaked during the pre-pandemic period (11 percent, including 8.7 percent of encounters who were UCs from non-contiguous countries). UCs accounted for lower shares of encounters in the pandemic and post-pandemic periods (with non-contiguous UCs accounting for 5.6 percent of encounters for each of those two periods), but the absolute number of non-contiguous UC encounters has grown from 56,000 in 2014 to nearly 110,000 in 2023. In contrast with FMs, most UCs continue to come from Mexico and the NCA countries.

Figure 4 depicts enforcement outcomes by family status for encounters occurring in the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic periods.

Figure 4.
Final or Most Current Enforcement Outcomes by Time Period and Family Status:
FY 2014 to FY 2023

Notes: Pre-pandemic period includes 2014 through March 19, 2020; pandemic period includes March 20, 2020, through May 11, 2023; post-pandemic period includes May 12, 2023, through September 30, 2023. Encounters with no subsequent event are excluded. Outcomes are based on source data as of December 31, 2023.

Source: Office of Homeland Security Statistics Enforcement Lifecycle.

SAs generally have the highest rates of cases resulting in repatriation and lower shares of all other outcomes. As of December 31, 2023, 86 percent of pre-pandemic SA encounters had been repatriated, 70 percent of pandemic-era SA encounters had been repatriated, and, given the shorter timeframe, 45 percent of post-pandemic SA encounters had been repatriated. The share receiving relief or an EOIR termination went from 5.9 percent for pre-pandemic encounters to 1.6 percent for pandemic-era encounters, and again due to the shorter timeframe, 0.2 percent for post-pandemic encounters. This left 8.6 percent of pre-pandemic cases, 28 percent of pandemic-era cases, and 55 percent of post-pandemic cases unresolved as of December 31, 2023.

FMs typically have the highest rates of unresolved cases. The share of encounters who had been repatriated went from 9.4 percent for pre-pandemic encounters to 25 percent for pandemic-era encounters, and due to the short timeframe, to 8.4 percent for post-pandemic encounters. The share receiving relief or an EOIR termination went from 21 percent for pre-pandemic encounters to 5.0 percent for pandemic-era encounters and again, due to the short timeframe, to 0.2 percent for post-pandemic encounters. This left 72 percent of pre-pandemic encounters, 72 percent of pandemic-era encounters, and 91 percent of post-pandemic encounters unresolved.

UCs generally have the highest rates of cases still being processed, which is to be expected given the numerous statutory provisions unique to this population[19] or resulting in relief or EOIR termination.[20] The share of encounters who had been repatriated decreased from 7.0 percent for pre-pandemic encounters to 2.6 percent for pandemic-era encounters to 0.4 percent for post-pandemic encounters. The share receiving relief or an EOIR termination decreased from 49 percent for pre-pandemic encounters to 13 percent for pandemic-era encounters to fewer than 0.2 percent for post-pandemic encounters. This left 44 percent of pre-pandemic encounters, 84 percent of pandemic-era encounters, and due to the short timeframe, over 99 percent of post-pandemic encounters unresolved.

5. Enforcement Outcomes Over Time

This section explores how enforcement outcomes progress over time by reporting on enforcement outcomes at fixed post-encounter time intervals, rather than reporting on all cohorts as of December 31, 2023, as in the previous sections of this report. As noted above, more recent encounter cohorts have higher shares of encounters that remain unresolved (see Figure 1). This fixed interval analysis offers insight into the degree to which this pattern is explained by the natural tendency of cases to move from unresolved to resolved over time, versus differences in resolution rates between more and less recent encounter cohorts and demographic groupings.

Figure 5 focuses on 2013 to 2018 cohorts at one-, three-, five-, and seven-year post-encounter time intervals.[21] Two main findings are illustrated. First, for each cohort, nearly all repatriations that occur within five or seven years of an encounter happen within the first year following the encounter. For the 2013 cohort, for example, the nearly 480,000 initial encounters had resulted in nearly 390,000 repatriations within one year of each encounter, and just over 390,000 repatriations within seven years of the initial encounter. In other words, first-year repatriations accounted for 99 percent of repatriations within the first seven years. Similarly, first-year repatriations accounted for 97 to 98 percent of repatriations within the first seven years for the 2014 to 2016 cohorts and for the first five years for the 2014 to 2018 cohorts. The percentage still being processed decreased over time, but virtually all the decrease in cases being processed resulted from growth in relief, EOIR terminations, and unexecuted removal orders, rather than additional repatriations. The finding that longer cases are more likely to result in relief or termination could be attributed to a number of factors, including greater case complexity, the involvement of attorneys, and a possible association between multiple legal processes (such as evidence gathering, witness testimonies, hearing, and appeals) and a greater likelihood of relief or termination. Longer cases are also more likely to result in unexecuted removal orders, in part because fewer long cases are continuously detained.

A second observation about Figure 5 is that the share of encounters resolved with final enforcement outcomes (repatriations, relief, or EOIR terminations) after one, three, and five years was notably lower for the 2018 cohort (65 percent resolved within five years) than for the 2013 cohort (89 percent resolved within five years).

The decline in resolution rates within five and seven years coincides with a demographic shift of border encounters. There has been a transition from predominantly Mexican SAs to larger shares of FMs, UCs, and non-Mexicans over this same time period. Enforcement processing generally takes longer for FMs and UCs compared to SAs, and for nationals from NCA and other non-Mexican countries compared to Mexican nationals. Therefore, the demographic shift from 2013 to 2018 is likely a major factor contributing to this drop in resolution rates.

Figure 5.
Southwest Border Encounters by Enforcement Outcomes One, Three, Five, and Seven Years after Initial Encounter: FY 2013 to FY 2018

Notes: Figure reflects outcomes as of three years after each encounter. Encounters with no subsequent event are excluded. Outcomes are current as of December 31, 2023.

Source: Office of Homeland Security Statistics Enforcement Lifecycle.

Figure 6 summarizes outcomes three years after initial encounter by family status and citizenship for the 2014 and 2019 cohorts. Though not shown in the figure, overall resolution rates dropped considerably between the 2014 and 2019 cohorts, from 76 percent to 39 percent, respectively.

As shown in Figure 6, for traditionally quick-to-resolve groups like Mexican nationals and single adults, three-year case resolution rates fell from 88 to 82 percent and 96 to 86 percent, respectively, across the 2014 and 2019 cohorts. Some traditionally slow-to-resolve demographic groups experienced lower resolution rates on a similar scale. For example, 41 percent of 2014 CDEP encounters were resolved within three years compared to 35 percent of their 2019 encounters. CHNV three-year resolution rates fell from 52 percent to 46 percent, and FM encounters’ three-year resolution rate dropped from 19 percent in 2014 to 10 percent in 2019.

The groups with the largest three-year resolution rate drops were UCs from non-contiguous countries, with 49 percent of 2014 cases resolved within three years compared to 19 percent of cases identified in 2019; NCAs with a drop from 57 percent to 23 percent; and the “other” citizenship grouping, which fell from 38 percent to 22 percent. These findings are consistent with the changes in demographic composition described above and help account for the halving of resolution rates between 2014 and 2019.

The relatively small changes in resolution rates within most encounter sub-groups means that most—but not all—of the slow-down in processing times between 2014 and 2019 is a function of the demographic changes described above. For example, if the 2019 cohort had had the same family status distribution as the 2014 cohort, the 2019 within-group resolution rates would have resulted in an overall three-year resolution rate of 67 percent—closer to the 2014 rate of 77 percent than the actual 2019 rate of 38 percent. Similarly, if 2019 encounters had the same citizenship profile as 2014 encounters, by-country processing times in 2019 would have yielded an overall resolution rate of 55 percent, about halfway between the 2014 and 2019 rates.

Figure 6.
Southwest Border Encounters by Enforcement Outcomes Three Years after Initial Encounter, Family Status, and Citizenship: FY 2014 and FY 2019

Notes: Encounters with no subsequent event or with UCs from contiguous countries are excluded. Resolved includes repatriations, relief, and EOIR terminations. Outcomes are current as of December 31, 2023.

Source: Office of Homeland Security Statistics Enforcement Lifecycle.

Conclusion

This report describes enforcement outcomes for persons encountered at the SWB from 2014 to 2023, with specific focus on outcomes by encounter cohort rather than annual events. Notably, several disparities in enforcement outcomes emerged when comparing the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. These variations can be attributed to policy changes associated with the pandemic, changing demographic profiles (country of citizenship and family status) of those encountered at the border, and the inability of border resources to keep pace with increases in the number of border encounters. Post-pandemic outcomes can only be examined up to seven and a half months after initial encounter, which is not a sufficient period of time to fully understand final results, as most cases are still in the processing stage.

Most pre-pandemic encounters (55 percent) had been repatriated by December 31, 2023, while one-fifth (17 percent) of pre-pandemic encounters were still being processed by DHS or DOJ. These outcomes varied by family status and citizenship. The majority of SAs (86 percent) and Mexican nationals (91 percent) having been repatriated, while a plurality of FMs (39 percent) and a significant portion of UCs from non-contiguous countries (23 percent), NCA countries (26 percent), CHNV countries (25 percent), CDEP countries (24 percent), and nationals of other countries (33 percent) were still being processed. Among those granted relief or other protection from removal in substantial numbers during the pre-pandemic era were UCs from non-contiguous countries (25 percent), nationals from CHNV countries (13 percent), and those from other countries (22 percent). For SAs and FMs, the vast majority of pre-pandemic repatriations occurred within the first year of an encounter.

This report also found that enforcement processing slowed considerably between 2013 and 2018, with 89 percent of encounters resulting in final outcomes (repatriations or relief or other protection from removal) within five years for the 2013 cohort compared to 65 percent for the 2018 cohort.

Similarly, enforcement processing slowed considerably between 2014 and 2019, with 76 percent of encounters resulting in final outcomes (repatriations or relief or other protection from removal) within three years for the 2014 cohort compared to 39 percent for the 2019 cohort. While this slowdown is related to the sheer volume of border encounters increasing faster than resources, the changing nature of border encounters has also contributed to this, as more border encounters originate from outside of Mexico, and as more noncitizens arrive as family units and UCs, which are more complex to process.

Appendix

Appendix tables include:

• Table A1. Southwest Border Encounters by Enforcement Outcomes: FY 2014 to FY 2023
• OHSS’s standard Enforcement Lifecycle tables sort outcomes of the SWB encounters into five large categories and a total of 20 sub-categories and provide breakouts by country of citizenship and family status. 

Footnotes

[1] “Noncitizens” refers to non-U.S. citizens or nationals in this report. ↩ Back

[2] Throughout the remainder of this report, a year refers to a fiscal year (October 1 of the previous calendar year to September 30). ↩ Back

[3] Repatriation includes expulsions executed under Title 42 authority and removals and returns executed under Title 8 authority. ↩ Back

[4] This report excludes administrative encounters, encounters of accompanied minors, and encounters of persons who scheduled appointments to appear at a port of entry through the CBP One™ mobile app who were released into the United States with a charging document (“Notice to Appear”) that initiates removal proceedings in immigration court. Administrative encounters include inadmissible noncitizens for which removal proceedings are not considered, including certain withdrawn applications for admission in cases prior to 2024, foreign crew members without entry visas who are required to remain aboard their ships, and persons paroled into the United States and released from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations (OFO) custody without being placed into removal proceedings. Accompanied minors include individuals younger than 18 years of age encountered by CBP or OFO who are determined to have no lawful immigration status and are traveling with a U.S. citizen or lawfully admissible noncitizen parent or legal guardian. These excluded categories represent 5.2 percent of all SWB encounters during the period covered by the report. ↩ Back

[5] Outcomes are current as of December 31, 2023. Reporting excludes encounters that cannot be matched to any subsequent event, which may result from limitations in the record matching algorithm, data quality errors, or because subsequent events are too recent to appear in OHSS datasets. Encounters with no subsequent event are less than 1.0 percent for pre-pandemic, pandemic era, and post-pandemic encounters. Total does not add up to 100 percent because of rounding. ↩ Back

[6] These 12 countries together account for 93 percent of SWB encounters during the period covered by this report. ↩ Back

[7] Throughout this report, “family unit” or “family unit individuals” refers to individuals encountered as part of a group consisting of one or more children under 18 years of age traveling with one or more adult (18 years of age or older) parents or legal guardians. All references to family units describe numbers of individuals encountered within family groupings, not to numbers of family groups. ↩ Back

[8] UCs are individuals younger than 18 years of age who have no lawful immigration status and who either do not have a parent or legal guardian in the United States or do not have a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody. Except as otherwise indicated, remaining references to unaccompanied children in this report are limited to children from non-contiguous countries (i.e., excluding Mexico and Canada). Pursuant to the Homeland Security Act, non-contiguous UCs are transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of refugee Resettlement (ORR) and may apply for certain forms of relief that are not available to others. In contrast, UCs from contiguous countries who are not victims of severe trafficking, who do not express a fear of return to their home country, and are able to make independent decisions, may be permitted to withdraw their application for admission to the United States and voluntarily return to Mexico or Canada. The 4.5 percent of repatriated UCs from non-contiguous countries follow a removal order by an immigration judge. For ease of analysis, this report excludes all contiguous UCs from its analysis of UC enforcement processing even though contiguous UCs who are younger than 14 years of age (about 10 percent of the contiguous UCs) are generally considered too young to make independent decisions about voluntarily returning to Mexico or Canada and are therefore erred to ORR and subject to the same processing as non-contiguous UCs. ↩ Back

[9] CBP began assisting with the implementation of CDC’s public health Order to prohibit the introduction of certain noncitizens to protect public health under Title 42 authority on March 20, 2020, and that authority expired on May 12, 2023, following the termination of the public health Order. ↩ Back

[10] Throughout this report “unexecuted removal orders” include noncitizens ordered removed or granted voluntary departure by an Immigration Judge (IJ) without a confirmed departure from the United States. Unexecuted orders include in absentia orders, which account for 76 percent of unexecuted removal orders. Removal orders (as well as grants of relief) that have been appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals or are subject to motions to reopen or reconsider are reported as still in removal proceedings, not as unexecuted orders. ↩ Back

[11] This trend describes people encountered in 2014 through 2019. Resolution rates were not analyzed for people encountered during the pandemic, when large shares of encounters were expelled under Title 42 authority, and too little time has elapsed to analyze resolution times for people encountered in the post-pandemic period. ↩ Back

[12] The Enforcement Lifecycle dataset is not an exhaustive record of every event recorded in Components’ operational datasets. For example, Lifecycle data includes records of initial book-ins to detention and detention release reasons but does not track transfers between detention facilities. ↩ Back

[13] When multiple events occur on the same day the Lifecycle reports the event that takes precedence in the immigration enforcement processes. For example, for an individual who has a book-in to ICE detention and an EOIR hearing on the same day, the Enforcement Lifecycle would treat the EOIR as the “more current” enforcement event since it more concretely advances the non-U.S. citizen’s removal proceedings. ↩ Back

[14] Event cycles may include “no subsequent event” because of limitations in the record matching algorithm, data quality errors, or because subsequent events are too recent to appear in OHSS datasets. Additional information on these “no subsequent event” cases is included in the detailed Appendix. ↩ Back

[15] Note, however, that 48 percent of Title 42 expulsions were followed by a re-encounter within 12 months, compared to 11 percent of Title 8 repatriations from the same time period. Also See Sean Leong, Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2022. ↩ Back

[16] Data in this section describe all SWB encounters, excluding those with no subsequent events as noted previously. ↩ Back

[17] The United States and Mexico have a long history of managing repatriations cooperatively, and the United States has also negotiated robust repatriation arrangements with the three NCA countries, including agreements to permit ample numbers of repatriation flights. These existing relationships also allowed for Title 42 expulsions during the pandemic. Such arrangements are generally based on country-by-country bilateral diplomacy, and agreements on repatriations flights lagged behind the rapid increase in encounters from countries other than Mexico and the NCA countries beginning in 2021. Additional flights were added at the beginning in 2021, but flights remained (and remain) limited in the case of countries with which the United States has limited diplomatic relationships, including Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and/or where there are humanitarian concerns about repatriations. In addition, it has generally been difficult for the United States to repatriate significant numbers of people to countries in the Eastern Hemisphere because of challenges securing travel documents from the countries of origin and the comparative expense of conducting large charter flights in lieu of shorter Western Hemisphere flights. ↩ Back

[18] Data in this section describe all SWB encounters, excluding those with no subsequent events as noted previously. ↩ Back

[19] Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), all non-contiguous unaccompanied children must be transferred to EOIR, a process that is inherently more time consuming than removal by DHS under expedited removal or reinstatement of a previous removal order, which are the most common ways single adults and certain family unit individuals are removed. The TVPRA also permits UCs to apply for asylum affirmatively before USCIS, and EOIR typically allows those applications to be considered prior to commencing removal proceedings. And many UCs apply for special immigrant juvenile status, an even longer process that requires being processed by state courts prior to filing a USCIS application. ↩ Back

[20] A total of nearly 15,900 UCs were expelled under Title 42 authority during the pandemic period, including over 4,100 non-contiguous UCs. On November 18, 2020, a U.S. district court enjoined the expulsion of UCs under Title 42 authority. In January 2021, the Biden administration exempted UCs from Title 42 expulsions as a matter of policy. ↩ Back

[21] The figure is limited to 2013 to 2018 cohorts since those are the only ones for which five- and up to seven-years-later data are available. The 2013 cohort is included because it is the earliest Lifecycle cohort available for analysis even though it falls outside of the 10-year window that is covered in the rest of the report. For a given encounter, the last reportable event within a post-encounter time interval is the outcome as of that time interval. For example, for an encounter occurring on February 15, 2017, the one-year post-encounter outcomes would be the last reportable event through February 15, 2018, the three-year post-encounter outcome would be the last reportable event through February 15, 2020, etc. If a particular encounter was in EOIR proceedings as of February 15, 2018, and had been repatriated as of February 16, 2018, the one-year and three-year outcomes would have different values. ↩ Back