WASHINGTON, D.C. October 25, 2025 — In the years after the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. immigration policy changes fueled a sharp rise in both legal and illegal immigration. Lawful admissions jumped, as did encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border between migrants and U.S. authorities.
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, according to a new Pew Research Center estimate. The increase of 3.5 million in two years is the biggest on record. Data from 2023 is the most recent available for developing a comprehensive and detailed estimate.
The label “unauthorized immigrants” captures a complex array of statuses, including immigrants who entered the U.S. legally. While the label is not perfect, it groups together immigrants living in the country with impermanent, precarious statuses. The term has been used for decades by researchers who develop estimates of the population and is generally used in this report.
The increase from 2021 to 2023 was driven primarily by growth in the number of unauthorized immigrants who were living in the U.S. with some protections from deportation, such as immigrants paroled into the country and asylum seekers. About 6 million immigrants without full legal status had some protection from deportation in 2023, up from 2.7 million in 2021. In 2007, when the total unauthorized immigrant population was at its previous high (12.2 million), about 500,000 had some protection from deportation.
The total number with temporary protections from deportations increased after 2021 following policy changes made by the Biden administration that allowed many immigrants to arrive in the U.S. with protected status and others to gain protection shortly after arriving.
Unauthorized immigrants with some protection from deportation accounted for more than 40% of those without full legal status in 2023. These protections can be, and in some cases have been, removed by the federal government, sometimes with little notification.
To understand which groups are considered unauthorized immigrants in this analysis, read “Who are unauthorized immigrants?” later in this report.
In 2023, unauthorized immigrants accounted for 27% of all U.S. immigrants, up from 22% in 2021. The group’s share of the U.S. population increased from 3.1% to 4.1% during this time.
CHANGES TO THE UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRANT POPULATION, 2024-25
Through early 2024, the overall unauthorized immigrant population continued to grow at a record pace, according to a Center review of preliminary and incomplete data sources. After mid-2024, policy decisions spanning the Biden and Trump administrations again changed this population. Growth slowed considerably in the last half of 2024 after the Biden administration stopped accepting asylum applications at the border and paused parole programs.
In 2025, the unauthorized immigrant population has probably started to decline, due in part to increased deportations and reduced protections under the Trump administration.
As of mid-2025, the unauthorized immigrant population likely remains above 2023 levels. Still, we won’t know the full impact of these policy shifts until more complete data becomes available.
Learn more about how the unauthorized immigrant population may have changed in 2024-25, according to preliminary, incomplete data.
OVERVIEW OF THIS REPORT
This report explores the dynamics shaping the population of immigrants living in the U.S. without full lawful status. It provides a complete estimate and profile for the unauthorized immigrant population in 2023 based on the best data currently available. The report also provides a look at how the population has since changed, sketching out trends based on incomplete data from 2024 and the first half of 2025 – though complete estimates are not yet possible due to these limitations.
The new estimates for 2023 (and revised estimates for 2022) are based on Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data from the American Community Survey (ACS), the most recent data available for a fully detailed estimate of unauthorized immigration. The survey data for these two years has been supplemented to take into account recent Census Bureau revisions of their data on the magnitude of immigration to the U.S.
Read “How we did this” for more.
WHICH GROUPS OF U.S. UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRANTS HAD DEPORTATION PROTECTION IN 2023?
Several groups of unauthorized immigrants had some protections from deportation in July 2023:
• Asylum applicants (2.6 million)
• Those who entered the U.S. legally after receiving parole (700,000)
• Victims of crimes or violence (700,000)
• Those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which is available to migrants in the U.S. from countries facing war, natural disasters or other crises (650,000)
• Enrollees in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which is available to those who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children (600,000)
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. These immigrants have some protections from deportation while their cases are resolved, but their protections are more limited.
Individuals in these groups are counted as part of the “unauthorized” immigrant population because their deportation protections are temporary and can quickly change. For example, the Trump administration in 2025 has:
• Removed deportation protections and rescinded work permits for about 500,000 parolees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
• Allowed protections to expire for about 350,000 Venezuelans and 350,000 Haitians with TPS.
• Stopped accepting asylum applications from immigrants who enter the country at the U.S.-Mexico border, a move that has been challenged in court.
• Largely stopped releasing immigrants into the U.S. who are encountered at the border.
The vast majority of unauthorized immigrants – more than 12 million in 2023 – either entered the U.S. illegally or overstayed a visa. Another 2 million entered the U.S. legally and were paroled or released into the country. Protection from deportation provided by programs such as DACA, TPS or asylum are only available to immigrants already in the U.S.
WHAT IS THE COMPOSITION OF THE U.S. IMMIGRANT POPULATION?
As of 2023, unauthorized immigrants represented 4.1% of the total U.S. population and 27% of the foreign-born population.
Meanwhile, the lawful immigrant population 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 number of lawful permanent residents largely held steady at 11.9 million. As a result, in 2023, almost half (46%) of all immigrants in the country were naturalized U.S. citizens.
U.S. immigrant population trends
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. This would be the first sustained drop in the U.S. immigrant population since the 1960s.
WHAT COUNTRIES DO UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRANTS COME FROM?
The number of U.S. unauthorized immigrants born in countries other than Mexico grew from 6.4 million in 2021 to 9.7 million in 2023.
By contrast, the unauthorized immigrant population born in Mexico grew only a little from 2021 to 2023, returning to its 2019 level of about 4.3 million.
Though Mexico remains the country where the most unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. are from, it accounted for 30% of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants living here in 2023. Mexicans represented a majority of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. through 2016; their share in 2023 was by far the smallest share on record.
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)
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.
The number of unauthorized immigrants from Cuba grew from less than 5,000 in 2019 to 100,000 in 2021 and 475,000 in 2023. This increase came after Cubans could no longer enter the U.S. legally without a visa, a change in policy made in 2017 under the Obama administration. Much of the recent growth in unauthorized immigrant populations from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Ukraine was due to parole programs instituted under President Joe Biden and that were ended by mid-2025.
El Salvador, India, China and the Philippines are the only countries to show no significant change in their U.S. unauthorized immigrant populations between 2021 and 2023 (among countries with more than 150,000 unauthorized immigrants).
World regions
The number of unauthorized immigrants from almost every world region increased since 2021. The largest increases were from South America (1.3 million), Central America (725,000) and the Caribbean (575,000).
Detailed table: Unauthorized immigrant population by region and selected country of birth (and margins of error), 1990-2023 (Excel)
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.
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.
States where the unauthorized immigrant population grew the most
The unauthorized immigrant populations grew in 32 states from 2021 to 2023. The four states with the biggest growth were:
• Florida (+700,000)
• Texas (+450,000)
• California (+425,000)
• New York (+230,000)
Eight additional states had their unauthorized immigrant populations increase by 75,000 or more: New Jersey, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio.
Oregon is the only state with a population of more than 100,000 unauthorized immigrants where this group did not increase compared with 2021.
Even with these increases in recent years, six states had smaller unauthorized immigrant populations in 2023 than in 2007, the previous peak – Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Oregon.
With information from the Pew Research Center. You can view the full report at https://tinyurl.com/424zj9ud
