By Ira Mehlman
FAIR
New data from several sources, compiled by the New York Times in December, confirms what most Americans have intuitively known: The past four years have seen record levels of mass migration. In fact, the pace of immigration (legal and illegal) now surpasses the level seen during the era of Ellis Island.
As the Times explains, this massive wave of migration began with the incoming Biden administration. According to data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), between 2021 and 2023, annual net foreign migration to the United States averaged 2.4 million people. Putting that figure in context, during each of the first three years of the Biden administration, we absorbed a population that is greater than Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city. And, by the time the books are closed on this administration on Jan. 20, net migration to the U.S. will have totaled 8 million people (the equivalent of the population of New York City). According to an analysis from Goldman Sachs, approximately 5 million of that total illegally crossed the border. Even more entered via illegal parole programs and have no legal status.
Even in relative terms, the pace of immigration to the United States reached uncharted territory during the Biden years. The net annual influx of 2.4 million people represents 0.6 percent of our total population, a rate that this country has not experienced since 1850, when this was a much more sparsely populated country. During this same period, the foreign-born share of our population rocketed from 13.6 percent to 16 percent, according to CBO data, exceeding the previous high-water mark of 14.8 percent set in 1890.
This data confirms that the illegal alien population in the U.S. is indeed higher than typically reported by the mass media – a point even the Times concedes. In 2023, FAIR’s analysis of available data placed the illegal alien population of the United States at 16.8 million (an estimate we considered to be conservative), rather than the commonly used figure of 11 million. FAIR’s estimate is based on several assumptions, including a significant undercount of the foreign-born population by the Census Bureau. Now the Times acknowledges that the Census Bureau can significantly undercount the foreign-born population, especially when analyzing recent years, because it does not account for rapid changes in population. It notes that the Congressional Budget Office, which reviews a wider range of data than the Census Bureau, has repeatedly issued higher illegal alien estimates and that investment firms, like Goldman Sachs, have come to similar conclusion as the CBO.
Ultimately, the Times, which largely ignored the wave of mass migration and chaotic borders during the past four years, now concedes that what FAIR and others in the immigration reform movement have been saying is accurate. Biden administration policies appear “to have been the biggest factor” driving record levels of illegal immigration and that the beneficiaries of these policies have been the Mexican drug cartels that have profited from the human smuggling trade.
Post-election, the paper also now admits that the Biden open-borders policies have harmed the interests of large segments of the American people. “[H]igh levels of immigration do have downsides, including the pressure on social services and increased competition for jobs. The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that wage growth for Americans who did not attend college will be lower than it otherwise would have been for the next few years because of the recent surge.”
As the Trump administration prepares to take office, and the new Congress gets down to business, the task at hand will be to reverse the damage not just of the past four years, but the past several decades, and to restore a sense of national interest to our immigration policies. There are no identifiable public interests served by a continued influx of more than 2 million people a year (regardless of whether they come legally or illegally), or by policies that result in chain migration that fails to account for the likelihood of immigrants to integrate successfully into our economy and national culture.
These are the issues that were driving factors in November’s elections. FAIR will be working with the new administration and Congress to craft policies that halt illegal immigration, reduce overall immigration to more manageable levels, and protect the vital interests of the American people.
