With 4.5 million, including an estimated 2.5 million illegals, added since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the foreign-born share at 49.5 million and 15% of US population is highest in history, according to a new report.
The immigrant share of the population has more than tripled since 1970 and nearly doubled since 1990, the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank, said in a new report. The number of immigrants has increased five-fold since 1970, 2.5 times since 1990, and is up 59% since 2000.
The 49.5 million foreign-born residents now living in the US is a new record high in American history, it said citing the October 2023 Current Population Survey (CPS), collected by the Census Bureau. The prior record was 14.8 percent, 133 years ago in 1890.
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Since Biden took office, immigrant population has increased by 4.5 million — larger than the individual populations of 25 US states. It is very likely that more than half of this increase, 2.5 million, is from new illegal immigration, according to CIS.
“This recent growth has important implications for everything from the nation’s education and healthcare systems to its physical infrastructure and labor force,” the report said.
“Perhaps the most fundamental question these numbers raise is whether America can successfully incorporate and assimilate this many people,” it said.
The size and growth of the immigrant population is not static, CIS said noting legal immigration continues at least at the pre-Covid pace, and illegal immigration almost certainly remains very high.
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If legal and illegal immigration were to continue at the current level, CIS projected that the total foreign-born population will reach nearly 59 million and 17.3% of population by the end of Biden’s second term in December 2028.
The largest percentage increases since January 2021 are for immigrants from South America (up 28%); Central America (up 25%); Sub-Saharan Africa (up 21%); the Caribbean (up 20%); and the Middle East (up 14%).
Immigrants from all of Latin America increased by 2.9 million since January 2021, accounting for 63% of the total increase in the foreign-born.
While a large share of the recent foreign-born growth is due to illegal immigration, legal immigrants still account for three-fourths of the total foreign-born population, the report noted.
The foreign-born population has grown on average by 137,000 a month since Biden took office, compared to 42,000 a month during Donald Trump’s presidency before Covid-19 hit, and 68,000 a month during President Barack Obama’s two terms.
The scale of immigration is so high that it appears to have made the new Census Bureau population projections, published on Nov 9 of this year, obsolete, CIS suggested noting the bureau projected that the foreign-born share was not supposed to hit 15% until 2033.