Estimates of the Size and Composition of the Undocumented Immigrant Population in the U.S. in 2024

Executive Summary This paper shows detailed estimates of the U.S. undocumented population in 2024. These estimates include detailed estimates of persons in “liminal” statuses. They account for a period (since 2020) of large-scale migration, legal and illegal, to the United States that significantly contributed to its undocumented population. The estimates show that 3.0 million of the population that arrived from 2021 to 2024 were known to the federal government because they arrived as asylum applicants or parolees, and 1.7 million arrived by crossing the border without inspection or overstaying their temporary visas. The paper reports that: The U.S. undocumented population totaled 14.6 million in 2024, a large one-year increase of 2.4 million. The proportion of the undocumented population in 2024 to the total foreign-born population (29%) and to the total U.S. population (4%) is consistent with the ratios over the last quarter century. More than one-third of the “undocumented” (5.4 million) in these estimates are, in fact, documented and known to the federal government, including non-citizens with temporary protected and humanitarian statuses, asylum seekers, and others – select survivors of crime, human trafficking, and juveniles in need of humanitarian protection – with pending or approved immigration applications or petitions. The labor force participation rate of the U.S. undocumented population (73%) substantially exceeded that of the U.S. population as a whole (64%). Undocumented workers had significant concentrations in construction (19%); accommodation and food services (13%); and administrative and waste management services (10%). More than two-thirds of the undocumented population in 2024 had lived in the United States for at least five years, and nearly 40 percent for fifteen years or more. The latter group were more established in the country than more recent arrivals, as evidenced by their higher rates of marriage (50%) and other indicia of integration. Mexican nationals continued to represent the highest number (5.1 million) and percentage (35%) of undocumented residents, but the U.S. undocumented population from Central American and South America grew at a much faster rate between 2020 and 2024. The growth in the undocumented population in U.S. states between 2020 and 2024 varied by country of origin. Nearly one-half of the increase in the undocumented population in Florida, for example, were from Venezuela and Haiti. Venezuelans and Hondurans comprised one-half of the growth in the undocumented population in Texas, while Guatemalans and Ecuadorians accounted for much of the increase in New York and New Jersey. Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, and Nicaragua – countries plagued by violence, repression, turmoil, and poverty – were among the fastest growing U.S. undocumented populations by country of origin between 2020 and 2024. In 2024, 5.1 million children under the age of eighteen who were US citizens, naturalized citizens, or had some other authorized status had at least one parent who was undocumented. Within this group, 1.9 million children had two parents who were undocumented. The study paints a portrait of a population that includes both well-established, long-term residents, and one that expanded in the aftermath of COVID-19 and in the first years of the Biden administration. The paper proposes a better way (than mass deportation) to resolve the situation of a substantial minority of the U.S. undocumented population. It urges Congress to update the entry date for a program (registry) that has been on the books since 1929 and offers a path to permanent residence to long-term undocumented residents with “good moral character.” Congress has advanced the entry date to qualify for registry several times since 1929. However, at present an undocumented resident would need to have lived continuously in the United States for fifty-four years to qualify. Moving forward the entry date to January 1, 2012, the paper shows, would offer legal status to more than five million undocumented residents, although not all of those who entered before January 1, 2012 would apply or qualify.