by WorldTribune Staff, March 13, 2025 Real World News

Amid historically low birth rates, all U.S. population growth in 2022-2023 was the result of immigration, according to a migration think tank.

America’s immigrant population grew by 1.6 million people between 2022 and 2023, reaching a record high of 47.8 million in 2023, according to a March 12 report by the Migration Policy Institute.

The population increase of 3.6% is the largest annual growth since 2010, but also marks the first time since 1850 immigration has outpaced births.

The foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population is 14.3%. That puts it slightly below the 14.8% registered in 1890, the report said.

U.S. birth rates reached a historic low in 2023, falling 2% from the previous year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The fertility rate fell to 54.5 births per 1,000 females ages 15-44 in 2023, down from 56 in 2022.

The U.S. government’s January 2025 Current Population Survey (CPS) shows the foreign-born or immigrant population (legal and illegal together) hit 53.3 million and 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population in January 2025 — both new record highs.

“The January CPS is the first government survey to be adjusted to better reflect the recent surge in illegal immigrants. Unlike border statistics, the CPS measures the number of immigrants in the country, which is what actually determines their impact on society,” the Center for Immigration Studies noted. “Without adjusting for those missed by the survey, we estimate illegal immigrants accounted for 5.4 million or two-thirds of the 8.3 million growth in the foreign-born population since President Biden took office in January 2021. America has entered uncharted territory on immigration, with significant implications for taxpayers, the labor market, and our ability to assimilate so many people.”

Highlights from the January 2025 data include:

• At 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population, the foreign-born share is higher now than at the prior peaks reached in 1890 and 1910. No U.S. government survey or census has ever shown such a large foreign-born population.

• The current numbers have rendered Census Bureau projections obsolete. Just two years ago, the Bureau projected the foreign-born share would not reach 15.8 percent until 2042.

• The 53.3 million foreign-born residents are the largest number ever in U.S. history; and the 8.3 million increase in the last four years is larger than the growth in the preceding 12 years.

• The above figures represent net growth. New arrivals are offset by outmigration and deaths in the existing immigrant population. Our best estimate is that 11.5 to 12.5 million legal and illegal immigrants settled in the country in the last four years.

• Although some immigrants are missed by government surveys, our preliminary estimate is that there are 15.4 million illegal immigrants in the January 2025 CPS, an increase of more than 50 percent (5.4 million) over the last four years in the survey.

• In the last four years, Latin America accounted for 58 percent (4.9 million) of the increase in the foreign-born, India 12 percent (958,000), the Middle East 8 percent (690,000), and China 7 percent (621,000).

• Of all immigrants, 60 percent are employed. As in any human population some work, but others are caregivers, disabled, children, elderly, or have no desire to work.

• Since 2000 the number of immigrants working has increased 83 percent and stood at 31.7 million in January 2025 — 19.6 percent of all workers.

• We estimate that 10.8 million illegal immigrants worked in the January 2025 data, accounting for some 6.7 percent of all workers. Illegal immigrants in particular are heavily concentrated in lower-skilled, lower-paid jobs, typically done by those without a bachelor’s degree.

• The rapid rise in immigrant workers has coincided with a significant increase in the share of U.S.-born (ages 16 to 64) men without a bachelor’s degree not in the labor force — neither working nor looking for work — from 20.3 percent in 2000 to 28.2 percent today.

President Donald Trump is reportedly set to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to facilitate the mass deportations of illegal aliens.

During his Jan. 20 inaugural address, Trump stated: “By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities.”

The law, enacted in 1798, remains in effect today but has rarely been used in the modern age. It grants the president sweeping authority to apprehend, restrain, and deport non-citizens who are citizens of a nation with which the U.S. is at war.

The act was used to detain and deport British nationals during the War of 1812. President Woodrow Wilson also used it to detain and deport German nationals during World War I.

Meanwhile, a March 11 analysis in The Federalist by Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies noted that Trump does not need Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s cooperation to deport Venezuelan illegals.

“Most of the nearly 1 million Venezuelans who illegally crossed the U.S. southern border were living contentedly in more than 20 other peaceful countries for years before they realized the Biden administration would grant them an American lifestyle upgrade,” Bensman wrote. “Many Venezuelan migrants were granted U.S. asylum by lying about the fact that they had lived for years already in other safe, welcoming countries.”

The Trump Administration, Bensman added, “can readily — and in good conscience — just send them back to these other countries in Latin America and Europe that already accepted them once, and had provided residency, asylum, and work authorization status.”

Bensman said that many Venezuelans attempting to cross the U.S. border told him they had been “living happily, comfortably, safely, and often very prosperously — for years — in the warm embrace of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, or a dozen other Latin American countries known more for vacation appeal than persecution.”

Timely: Defund Fake News

The American Free Press is Back!

  Immigration accounted for all U.S. population growth; Most illegal Venezuelans came from elsewhere, WorldTribune.com