Illegal immigration hit record in 2023: Pew

The number of immigrants lacking permanent legal status in the United States hit an all-time high of 14 million people in 2023 amid a surge that followed the COVID-19 pandemic and policy shifts from the Biden administration, according to a new independent analysis.

The Pew Research Center, using the most recent numbers available for meaningful review, found a massive spike — the biggest on record — from 2021 to 2023, coinciding with the start of former President Biden's administration in January 2021 and the pandemic fallout that more severely impacted poorer countries.

The Pew researchers noted that the swing was largely driven by an increase in the number of people who were deemed "unauthorized immigrants" but were temporarily allowed in the country for further review, including asylum-seekers and immigrants paroled into the country after they crossed the border.

"These protections can be, and in some cases have been, removed by the federal government, sometimes with little notification," Pew noted.

According to Pew's research, the states with the biggest influx of "unauthorized immigrants" were California (2.3 million), Texas (2.1 million), Florida (1.6 million) and New York (825,000).

Eight other states saw their immigrant populations increase by 75,000 or more during the two-year period: New Jersey, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio.

After President Trump's hard-line approach to immigration and migrant asylum during his first term, the Biden administration moved to grant asylum status to more migrants and release border crossers to report back with court summons to further evaluate their pleas for protective status.

Trump campaigned heavily in 2024 on rooting out people who were in the country illegally and those who had been granted asylum status improperly as the Biden term saw record border crossings. Shortly after returning to office in January, Trump reversed some protections that Biden's team granted. The Trump administration has reported a dramatic drop in illegal border crossings since he took office.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed more than 302,000 encounters at the southern border in December 2023 alone — a new record. Unlawful border crossings plummeted after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.

Trump, upon his return to the White House in January, further clamped down restrictions on asylum and launched a sweeping immigration crackdown heavily focused on immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization.

Pew reported that "unauthorized immigrants" accounted for 27 percent of all U.S. immigrants in 2023 — up from 22 percent two years earlier.