California continues to lead the unauthorized immigrant population

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The unauthorized immigrant population in the United States reached 10.5 million in 2021, according to new Pew Research Center estimates. That was a modest increase over 2019 but nearly identical to 2017.

The six states with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations in 2021 were:

1. California (1.9 million)

2. Texas (1.6 million)

3. Florida (900,000)

4. New York (600,000)

5. New Jersey (450,000)

6. Illinois (400,000)

These states have consistently had the most unauthorized immigrants since 1990 and earlier.

At the same time, the unauthorized immigrant population has become less geographically concentrated. In 2021, these six states were home to 56% of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants, down from 80% in 1990.

The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2021 remained below its peak of 12.2 million in 2007. It was about the same size as in 2004 and lower than every year from 2005 to 2015.

The new estimates do not reflect changes that have occurred since apprehensions and expulsions of migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border started increasing in March 2021. Migrant encounters at the border have since reached historic highs.

Here are key findings about how the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population changed from 2017 to 2021:

*The most common country of birth for unauthorized immigrants is Mexico. However, the population of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico dropped by 900,000 from 2017 to 2021, to 4.1 million.

*There were increases in unauthorized immigrants from nearly every other region of the world – Central America, the Caribbean, South America, Asia, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

*Among U.S. states, only Florida and Washington saw increases to their unauthorized immigrant populations, while California and Nevada saw decreases. In all other states, unauthorized immigrant populations were unchanged.
4.6% of U.S. workers in 2021 were unauthorized immigrants, virtually identical to the share in 2017.

Immigrants are joining the U.S. workforce at much higher levels than normal