Foreign Born Population At Record High

Immigration was a central part of Trump's Presidential campaign. His arguments that immigration was linked to crime or terrorism or a net fiscal burden on governments or economic harm were just purely untrue. His claim that illegal immigration amounts to an "invasion" of the United States in a constitutional sense is also far outside the mainstream of legal interpretation.

But, there has indeed been a lot of immigration in the post-pandemic period (some of just replacing people who left for the pandemic and are now coming back). 

The percentage of people residing in the United States who are foreign-born is record high. It is roughly three times as great as it was when I was born (when it was at an all time low).

I'm not in the least troubled by this surge in immigration, which is on balance a good thing for the country, even the undocumented immigration, although our nation's immigration laws are definitely broken.

The combined increases of legal and illegal immigration have caused the share of the U.S. population born in another country to reach a new high, 15.2 percent in 2023, up from 13.6 percent in 2020. The previous high was 14.8 percent, in 1890.

Source: Analysis of data from the Congressional Budget Office and U.S. Census Bureau

The rate at which people immigrated to the U.S. in the last four years has also been a record high, and according to the Goldman Sachs analysis found in the New York Times article (dated today) that all of the quotations and charts in this post derive from, about 60% of net immigration in the last four years has been undocumented.

Annual net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed eight million people.

That’s a faster pace of arrivals than during any other period on record, including the peak years of Ellis Island traffic, when millions of Europeans came to the United States. Even after taking into account today’s larger U.S. population, the recent surge is the most rapid since at least 1850:

The numbers in the Times analysis include both legal and illegal immigration. About 60 percent of immigrants who have entered the country since 2021 have done so without legal authorization, according to a Goldman Sachs report based on government data.

The story also analyzes the reasons behind this surge in immigration:

Several factors caused the surge, starting with President Biden’s welcoming immigration policy during his first three years in office. Offended by Donald J. Trump’s harsh policies — including the separation of families at the border — Mr. Biden and other Democrats promised a different approach. “We’re a nation that says, ‘If you want to flee, and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come,’” Mr. Biden said during his 2020 presidential campaign.

After taking office, his administration loosened the rules on asylum and other immigration policies, making it easier for people to enter the United States. Some have received temporary legal status while their cases wend through backlogged immigration courts. Others have remained without legal permission.

Outside causes have also played an important role in the surge. Turmoil in Haiti, Ukraine and Venezuela caused desperate people to flee their home countries. The growth of smuggler networks run by Mexican drug cartels allowed more people to reach the U.S. border. 

But the Biden administration’s policy appears to have been the biggest factor: After Mr. Biden tightened enforcement in June, the number of people crossing the border plummeted.