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Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022

Are 250,000 people crossing the Southern U.S. border every month?

Ngan Nguyen, Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting
no

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there were 2,206,436 total border encounters in fiscal year 2022 (October 2021 to September 2022), which averages out to about 184,000 per month. In fiscal year 2021, there were 1,659,206 encounters, which averages out to about 138,000 per month.

In fiscal year 2022, more than 562,000 people were encountered at the Arizona border. On average, this means agents encountered 46,800 people at the border per month.This is a substantial increase from fiscal year 2021, when more than 305,000 people tried to cross the border in the Yuma and Tucson regions.

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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.

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The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting is the state’s only independent, nonpartisan and collaborative nonprofit newsroom dedicated to statewide, data-driven investigative reporting. AZCIR's mission is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable by exposing injustice and systemic inequities through investigative journalism.

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