The foreign-born population present in the United States has surged to a new record high of more than 53 million people, with mass illegal immigration driving much of the increase, new government data from the Current Population Study found.
The record-breaking figure accounts for 15.8 percent of the entire United States population, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) pointed out, adding that “America has entered uncharted territory on immigration.”
“The foreign-born share is higher now than at the prior peaks reached in 1890 and 1910. No U.S. government survey or census has ever shown such a large foreign-born population,” CIS reported.
The foreign-born population increased by a whopping 8.3 million over the last four years under the Biden administration to the new total of 53.3 million, an increase that CIS says was primarily driven by mass illegal immigration. “We estimate illegal immigrants accounted for 5.4 million or two-thirds of the 8.3 million growth in the foreign-born population since President Biden took office in January 2021,” CIS reported.
“The 8.3 million increase in the last four years is larger than the growth in the preceding 12 years,” CIS noted, also adding that the new figures “have rendered Census Bureau projections obsolete. Just two years ago, the Bureau projected the foreign-born share would not reach 15.8 percent until 2042.”
The surge takes into account outflows and deaths, meaning that significantly more than 8.3 million immigrants are believed to have entered the country over the last four years. “Our best estimate is that 11.5 to 12.5 million legal and illegal immigrants settled in the country in the last four years,” CIS notes.
The new figures come just after the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released a study indicating that the illegal alien population has similarly surged to an unprecedented high of 18.3 million. Based on FAIR’s estimate, the illegal alien population is larger than the individual population of 46 of America’s 50 states. “As of 2025, American population growth comes almost entirely from unsustainably high levels of immigration, both legal and illegal,” FAIR charged in its report.
