A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) shows that the foreign-born population in the United States has grown to 49.5 million, or 15 percent of the total population — the largest share ever recorded in American history.
A higher percentage of migrants reside in the United States now than in 1890, when they made up 14.8 percent of the population. Researchers from the Census Bureau did not expect the share of the foreign-born population to reach 15 percent until 2033.
Since Biden took office, the foreign-born population has grown by 4.5 million, which is in itself greater than the populations of 25 states. More than half of this growth likely comes from illegal immigration, with researchers pointing to the expiration of Title 42 and President Biden’s lax border policies as explanations for the unprecedented growth.
The report also found migrants from Latin America accounted for 63 percent of the total increase in the foreign-born population.
Under President Barack Obama, the foreign-born population grew on average 68,000 a month; under the Biden administration, that number has jumped to 137,000. As the CIS report clarifies, while legal migration still accounts for 75 percent of the total population of the foreign-born, “a large share of the recent foreign-born growth is due to illegal immigration.”
Between January 2021 and July 2023, 7 million “encounters” were recorded at U.S. national borders. But according to the CIS report, the number of “got-aways,” or “subjects observed entering illegally but not stopped or turned back,”
