IMMIGRATIONImmigrant Population Is Still One Million Below the Pre-Trump Trend
The share of the US population who are immigrants—legal and illegal—rose just 0.4 percentage points, from 13.9 percent to 14.3 percent from July 2022 to July 2023. Over the last decade, the U.S. has seen the slowest growth in the immigrant share of the population since the 1960s. The immigrant share is growing slowly and is still below its record high in 1890, even though the U.S. is currently experiencing the slowest total population growth in its history.
New numbers from the Census Bureau’s mini-census, the American Community Survey (ACS), show that the immigrant population is increasing but is still below the Census Bureau’s projections made in 2017 (the year the Trump administration started to radically alter the course of immigration for four years). The ACS is the largest survey of the US population, allowing it to report the most accurate assessment of demographic trends in the United States. The new numbers show:
· The share of the US population who are immigrants—legal and illegal—rose just 0.4 percentage points, from 13.9 percent to 14.3 percent from July 2022 to July 2023;
· the total immigrant population increased by 1.6 million, the largest single-year increase since 2006;
· from July 2020 to July 2023, the immigrant population increased just 3 million—less than 1 percent of the US population;
· despite the increase, the number of immigrants in 2023 was 1 million lower than what the Census Bureau projected in 2017 would be the case today;
· over the last decade, the US has seen the slowest growth in the immigrant share since the 1960s; and
· the immigrant share is growing slowly and still below its record high in 1890, even though the US is currently experiencing the slowest total population growth in its history.
· Without high rates of immigration going forward, the US population will significantly decline.
Figure 1 graphs the total immigrant population from 2000 to 2023 (years 2001-03 aren’t available from the American Community Survey). It shows that the actual immigrant population was about 47.8 million, compared to the Census Bureau’s 2017 projection of 48.8 million—down 1 million people. The Census Bureau estimated that the number of immigrants would increase by 4.3 million from July 2017 to July 2023 but it increased by just 3.3 million.
Immigrant population growth was below expectations every year until 2022, when it exceeded the Census Bureau’s projection for the first time. Note that the Census Bureau ACS data include illegal immigrants. From 2020 to 2023, the immigrant population increased by only 3 million.
