The number of illegal immigrants believed to be residing in the United States rose during former President Joe Biden’s final year in office to the highest levels in history, according to a newly released study.
The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank based in New York, estimated that approximately 15.8 million people were residing in the U.S. illegally as of mid-2024, just as the historic border crisis was winding down.
The figure shows that the illegal immigrant population grew from the 11 million level seen throughout the 2010s to this new high as a result of millions of illegal border crossers being released into the U.S. indefinitely and foreigners paroled into the country through a Biden-era program.
“The increase is primarily driven by record unauthorized migrant arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border and the Biden administration’s wide use of humanitarian parole programs to reduce chaos at the border,” the MPI report concluded.
“As a result of these grants of parole and other Biden administration moves, MPI estimates that, as of mid-2024, as many as 40 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the United States held a liminal (or “twilight”) status providing them temporary protection from deportation, such as Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), humanitarian parole, or pending asylum application,” MPI wrote. “Between the third year of President Donald Trump’s first term and the final year of the Biden administration, the illegal immigrant population increased by a net 5 million people.”
The increase was attributed to “uncommonly strong U.S. economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the large-scale displacement from countries throughout the Americas fueled by gang violence, political repression, and economic challenges.”
The report did not comment on the transition in administrations and the soft approach to border security that the Biden administration took to illegal immigration, which Republicans have argued was the top reason that so many chose to migrate to the U.S. during that period.
One of the biggest changes in the numbers was in the countries immigrants came from.
Historically, Mexican nationals have made up the majority of illegal immigrants inside the U.S. Although Mexicans remained the No. 1 nationality of illegal immigrants, Central and South American countries saw major increases.