By American Renaissance | Created at 2025-03-13 20:02:37 | Updated at 2025-03-14 11:31:05
16 hours ago
Posted on March 13, 2025
Dan Gooding, Newsweek, March 12, 2025
Immigration was the sole driver of the United States’ population growth in a single year for the first time since records began, a new study released Wednesday said.
The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) looked at U.S. Census Bureau data for 2022-2023, the latest available, finding that falling American birthrates factored into the change.
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The U.S. immigrant population grew by 1.6 million between 2022 and 2023 to 47.8 million, according to the MPI analysis, with immigrants now representing a 14.3 percent share of the overall population—the highest ever.
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In 2023, birth rates among American women reached a record low for those aged between 20 and 24, while the rate also dropped overall for the larger group of 20-39 year olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The shift has been noted in other reporting in recent months, including from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), which found that more immigrants were entering the workforce than American-born workers because of an aging population and the declining birthrate. Immigrants made up around 18 percent of the total workforce in 2023, the last year for which complete data is available.
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Among the largest nationalities represented in the U.S. immigrant population in 2023 were Mexicans at 23 percent, followed by Indians (6 percent) and Chinese (5 percent).
The nationalities driving the most growth were those from Central and Southern America, as well as the Philippines, Nigeria and Afghanistan. While some will have crossed the southwest border illegally during that period, many arrived on newly created or expanded legal pathways, such as humanitarian parole.
Nearly three quarters have legal status of some kind. Around 27 percent of the immigrant population in 2023 had no legal status, but 19 percent had green cards, while 49 percent had become U.S. citizens.
The number of children living with at least one immigrant parent has also grown drastically since 1990, when the proportion was 13 percent. That number has since doubled to 26 percent.
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California, Texas and Florida continue to be the top three states for immigrant population growth by numbers, but the Dakotas saw 80 percent-plus growth in their immigrant populations over roughly the last decade, while Delaware, Tennessee and South Carolina were also among the top 10 states seeing large percentage growth.
