The immigrant population has exploded by an unprecedented 6.4 million under President Biden amid the migrant crisis — an increase four times higher than under former President Donald Trump, a new study reveals.
Overall, a record-shattering 51 million people living in the United States were born in another country, a surge triggered by the millions of migrants crossing the border, the report by the Center for Immigration Studies found.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before over a three-year period of time. All prior records have been surpassed,” said Steven Camarota, the research director for CIS and author of the analysis.
Waves of migrants are flooding urban areas including in New York City, straining the Big Apple’s shelter system and budget.
More than half of the migrants arriving came here illegally without documentation, the report claims.
The report also said that in February 2024, the foreign-born population in the United States hit a new high of 51.4 million and now accounts for 15.5% — surpassing all prior records.
The foreign-born share of the US population has more than tripled since 1970, nearly doubled since 1990, and is up 40 percent just since 2000.
Growth in the foreign-born population is being driven primarily by immigration from Latin America, which has grown 4.2 million since January 2021.
At 172,000 new immigrants arriving per month, the average increase in the foreign-born under President Biden is four times the 42,000 average monthly increase under former President Donald Trump before COVID-19 hit and double the 68,000 average under former President Barack Obama, when Biden was vice president.
If current trends continue, the foreign-born population will reach nearly 60 million and 17.5% of the US population by the end of a second Biden term, should he get re-elected.
“We preliminarily estimate that more than half (3.7 million) of the 6.4 million increase in the foreign-born population since January 2021 is likely due to illegal immigration. If adjusted for those missed by the survey, the increase is larger,” the report said.
While a large share of the recent growth in the foreign-born population is due to illegal immigration, legal immigrants still account for roughly three-fourths of the total foreign-born population, according to the report.
“The scale of immigration is so high that it appears to have made the Census Bureau population projections, published in November of last year, obsolete. The bureau projected that the foreign-born share would not reach 15.5 percent until 2039,” the report said.
In February, the 31 million immigrant workers accounted for nearly 20% of all workers — both new record highs.
The number of immigrant workers is up by 3. 3 million since February 2020, right before the COVID-19 outbreak, while the number of US-born workers dropped by 1 million.
