Migration Policy Institute: Who Are Immigrants in the United States?

Students often request basic facts about immigration and the immigrant population in the United States. This Migration Policy Institute "short explainer" provides basic statistics on the foreign-born population in the United States, including its size, origins, places of U.S. settlement, and pathways of arrival. The United States is the world’s top immigrant destination, with more than three-quarters of the nearly 48 million immigrants in the country as of 2023 here legally.

The explainer, Who Are Immigrants in the United States?, shares a number of data points, including:

• The foreign-born share of the U.S. population, which stood at 14.3 percent in 2023, is near the historical high of 14.8 percent recorded in 1890.
• Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 27 percent of the total U.S. civilian population.
• The national origins of immigrants have significantly diversified. While Mexico remains the largest single source country, immigration from South America, Africa, and Asia has grown rapidly since 2010. Even as the overall immigrant population in the United States grew by 20 percent between 2010 and 2023, immigration from Africa increased by 74 percent and from South America by 61 percent.

KJ