By Michael Capuano
FAIR
In a brand new report, FAIR estimates that, at the beginning of 2025, the illegal alien population living in the United States now stands at 18.6 million. This marks the highest ever population of illegal aliens in the U.S., a figure twice as large as New York City. The number of illegal aliens living in the U.S. grew by at least 28 percent (more than 4 million people) since December 2020, which, through open-borders policies, invited migrants from all over the world to our borders and released them upon entry.
FAIR’s new estimate reflects a quiet but significant change in the official Census Bureau data. In December 2024, the Bureau announced via a blog post that it had previously missed nearly 2 million foreign nationals who had migrated to the U.S. between mid-2021 and mid-2023. The Bureau also logged an increase of 2.8 million migrants who arrived between mid-2023 and mid-2024. In each year, most of these were classified as “humanitarian migrants.” It turns out, the Biden administration was letting in these migrants (mostly illegal aliens) so quickly that the Census Bureau simply couldn’t count them using its traditional methods.
At the same time, the Census Bureau revised its official count of the foreign-born population upward, it adjusted its methodology for future population estimates to capture this new growth. This change only confirms what FAIR has noted for years: that the illegal alien population has grown rapidly, and this growth was being missed or ignored by open-borders politicians and the mainstream media.
Most estimates of illegal immigration have stayed stagnant at around 11 million for over a decade, despite ample evidence to the contrary – even official statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These estimates were generally based on Census Bureau data from before this revision and (unlike FAIR’s estimates) did not fully account for how many illegal aliens the Census Bureau missed. It is clear that the illegal alien population has grown at a breakneck pace over the past four years.
FAIR’s study also details the policies, like parole abuse, that led to this unprecedented growth. Communities nationwide were blindsided by open borders and the mass release of illegal aliens into the country, and many small communities like Springfield, Ohio and Charleroi, Pennsylvania were overwhelmed. Large “sanctuary” cities like New York City and Chicago also struggled to accommodate people, handcuffed by their own sanctuary policies. This came as our immigration system already strains to let in over a million legal immigrants annually and the foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population (roughly 16.6 percent) is higher than at the peak of Ellis Island.
Many of the executive policies that allowed the illegal alien population to grow to this record high are now being rolled back. However, the legal framework for reopening the floodgates at the border and elsewhere at any time will still be in place without Congressional action. For the sake of our country, durable legislative change must ensure that the wave of illegal immigration witnessed over the past four years can never happen again.
