The latest figures used in the CIS analysis were taken from the U.S. Census Current Population Survey (CPS) and reflect data through last month. As of March 2024, there were 5.1 million more foreign-born individuals in the U.S. than in March 2022, marking “the largest two-year increase ever recorded in American history,” according to CIS. Additionally, 15.6 percent of the total U.S. population being foreign-born is also a record high. “What is so striking about all the recent increases is that they represent net changes, not merely a new inflow,” Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler explained, writing for CIS. “New immigrants add to the total foreign-born population but are offset by emigration and mortality among the existing immigrant population,” the authors stated. “All births to immigrants in the United States add only to the native-born population by definition. This means the number of new arrivals must be even higher for the foreign-born population to grow this much.” Less than half of the U.S. foreign-born population (46 percent) who arrived over the past two years were employed during the first part of 2024. Only about 8 percent say they are looking for work. In a previous report, the organization concluded that specific Biden administration policies are directly contributing to the influx of foreigners into the U.S. Campaign promises about lax border enforcement, made even before President Joe Biden took office, are partly to blame, according to CIS. Analysts also cited ending the “remain in Mexico” protocols for asylum seekers, and terminating the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, which deterred illegal migration from those countries. CIS added in the report:America’s foreign-born or immigrant population (both legal and illegal) has climbed to a record high 51.6 million people, more than 15 percent of the total U.S. population, according to new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
More than half (nearly 58 percent) of the increase is directly attributable to illegal migration, the organization says.
In addition to the policy changes listed above, the administration also decided not to place a large share of individuals showing up at the border into what is called “expedited removal” and send them back home relatively quickly. In addition, virtually all non-Mexicans could have been held in detention, at least initially before the numbers became too large. Biden’s DHS chose not to do that either. Once it became clear that the administration was not going to return people across the border, detain them, send them home quickly, or require them to wait in Mexico for asylum, the number of people coming to the border skyrocketed. The asylum system quickly became overwhelmed, creating a backlog that will take a decade or more to work through. All the above policies caused even more people to come and apply in the hopes that they too would be released into the country, where they would be allowed to remain for years awaiting court dates. If current trends continue, CIS estimates that America’s foreign-born population will reach 62.5 million in 2030 and 82.2 million by 2040, a population size larger than the current combined populations of 30 states and the District of Columbia.
