U.S. Illegal Immigrant Numbers Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023, Report Says

First immigrant drop since the 1960's also noted.

Aug 23, 2025

On Sept. 25, 2023 Federal Agents, acting on orders from the Biden Administration, cut barbed wire installed by the State of Texas which had been blocking migrants from moving from the Rio Grande onto Texas soil. Hundreds poured through as a result.The US Illegal Alien population reached record levels that year, according to newly-released Pew Research. — On Sept. 25, 2023 Federal Agents, acting on orders from the Biden Administration, cut barbed wire installed by the State of Texas which had been blocking migrants from moving from the Rio Grande onto Texas soil. Hundreds poured through as a result. The US Illegal Alien population reached record levels that year, according to newly-released Pew Research. (Screenshot of Fox News coverage)

(Note: this is the sixth in our series of in-depth reports on US Border Issues)

A report issued this week by the Pew Research Center confirms that in the years after the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. immigration policy changes fueled a sharp rise in both legal and illegal immigration.

The number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023 after two consecutive years of record growth, Pew Research determined.

Which groups of U.S. unauthorized immigrants had deportation protection in 2023?

The Pew Report found that, while “several groups of unauthorized immigrants had some protections from deportation in July 2023 … another 1.0 million migrants encountered by U.S. Border Patrol were released into the U.S., typically with orders to appear in immigration court.”

Their deportation protections are temporary and can quickly change as indicated in the chart below:

What is the composition of the U.S. immigrant population?

As of 2023, the Pew Study found that “unauthorized immigrants represented 4.1% of the total U.S. population and 27% of the foreign-born population.”

Meanwhile, Pew reports that the lawful immigrant population also grew steadily from 24.1 million in 2000 to 37.8 million in 2023. The growth was driven by a rapid increase in the number of naturalized citizens, from 10.7 million to 23.8 million.

The overall U.S. immigrant population reached an all-time high of more than 53 million in January 2025, accounting for a record 15.8% of the U.S. population.

However, growth slowed substantially starting in early 2024, and the number declined by more than 1 million between January and June 2025, according to data from the Current Population Survey.

The Pew Research Center says this “would be the first sustained drop in the U.S. immigrant population since the 1960s.”

(NOTE: This is a very important development, which I will comment on further at the end of this article)

What countries do unauthorized immigrants come from?

Though Mexico remains the country where the most unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. are from, Pew Research found it accounted for 30% of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants living here in 2023, as indicated in the chart below:

After Mexico, the countries with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations in the U.S. in 2023 were:

Guatemala (850,000)
El Salvador (850,000)
Honduras (775,000)
India (680,000)

According to the Pew Research Center:

“In 2023, Venezuela was the country of birth for 650,000 U.S. unauthorized immigrants. This population has seen particularly fast growth, from 55,000 in 2007 to 195,000 in 2021 and 650,000 in 2023.
Other countries have also had large increases in the number of unauthorized immigrants in recent years. Totals from Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Ukraine and Peru all more than doubled from 2021 to 2023.”

What states do unauthorized immigrants live in?

The six states with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations in 2023 were:

California (2.3 million)
Texas (2.1 million)
Florida (1.6 million)
New York (825,000)
New Jersey (600,000)
Illinois (550,000)

These states have consistently had the most unauthorized immigrants since at least 1980. However, in 2007, California had 1.2 million more unauthorized immigrants than Texas. Today, it has only about 200,000 more.

Pew Research notes that the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population has also become considerably less geographically concentrated over time. In 2023, the top six states were home to 56% of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants, down from 80% in 1990.

How many children in the U.S. have unauthorized immigrant parents?

About 4.6 million children under 18 born in the U.S. lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent in 2023, up from 4.0 million in 2021 and below the previous high of 4.9 million in 2016. As of 2023, Pew Research says these children accounted for about 75% of all minor children living with an unauthorized immigrant parent.

In 2023, about 300,000 babies were born in the U.S. to an unauthorized immigrant, up from about 200,000 in 2021.)

How long have unauthorized immigrants lived in the U.S.?

A record number of unauthorized immigrants have been in the U.S. for a relatively short time due to the rapid growth in the overall unauthorized population since 2021.

In 2023, more than 4.2 million unauthorized immigrant adults had been in the U.S. for less than five years, up from 1.8 million in 2021. The 2023 figure is more than double the number in any year from 2010 to 2019, Pew Research reports:

How many unauthorized immigrants are in the labor force?

Pew Research finds that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. workforce grew from 7.8 million in 2021 to a record 9.7 million in 2023.

Unauthorized immigrants represented 5.6% of the U.S. workforce in 2023, a new high. The previous peak was 5.4% in 2007.

Pew Research shows the U.S. may be at an historic inflection point:

Although the headline of this report is the number of illegal aliens reaching record levels in 2023, remember that Pew Research reports that growth slowed substantially starting in early 2024, and the number declined by more than 1 million between January and June 2025.

This “would be the first sustained drop in the U.S. immigrant population since the 1960s,” the report notes.

We are at an historic inflection point at which the US could lose more immigrants than it gains for the first time in 50 years, especially as the Trump Administration cancels Temporary Protected Status granted some immigrants and ramps up arrests and deportations of others.

While many welcome such a change, others warn that it could come at a cost.

The Washington Post recently noted that ”the workforce is already growing more slowly than it did 10 or 20 years ago as the bulge of baby boomers reaches retirement age.”

“You take those people away at a time when demographics are resulting in a lack of replacement for retired workers — all that’s a recipe for higher inflation,” Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, told the Post.