Immigrants in U.S. Without Permanent Legal Status Grew to 12.2 Million, Study Finds

WASHINGTON — The Center for Migration Studies Thursday released a report finding the population of people in the United States without permanent legal status increased to 12.2 million in 2023, using the most recent Census Bureau American Community Survey data.

It’s a number that grew by 2 million from 2020 to 2023, according to the study by the nonpartisan New York think tank that studies domestic and international migration.

Six states that have the largest population of people without permanent legal status also saw some of the biggest increases. They are California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas. Of those states, the fastest-growing were Florida, New York and New Jersey.

That population estimate includes not only people in the U.S. without legal authorization, but immigrants in programs that provide temporary legal status. That would include programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and Temporary Protected Status, as well as people with pending asylum cases or who received humanitarian parole status since 2021.

The study noted that estimating the size of the population without permanent legal status could “become even more challenging in the next few years” because the census data collection could be affected by mass firings of federal workers as the Trump administration aims to cull the federal workforce.

Authors of the study also took into consideration the Trump administration’s efforts to enact mass deportations and how the population could decline, not due to removals but rather a decrease in the number of immigrants responding to survey data.

“The salient questions would be: Did the decline occur because deportations increased, including of populations stripped of temporary legal status, because fear led to an increase in emigration, because fear reduced the response rates in the surveys, or because of a combination of these or other factors?,” according to the study.

The annual report from the think tank runs counter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s congressional testimony in May to Senate appropriators that there are more than 20 million people in the country without legal authorization.

Other think tanks that study migration, such as the Migration Policy Institute, have estimated as of 2021, there were 11.2 million immigrants in the U.S. without legal authorization.

Venezuelan migrants

One major finding in the study by the Center for Migration Studies was that the population of Venezuelan immigrants increased from 55,000 in 2013 to 220,000 in 2020.

According to the study, that population then doubled in 2023 to 445,000, which is around the time the Biden administration granted TPS protections for a second group of Venezuelans after granting TPS for a first group of Venezuelans in 2021. Roughly half a million Venezuelans are under the TPS program and are at risk of losing protections from deportation.

That program allows nationals from countries deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence, political instability or other unstable conditions to remain in the U.S. for up to 18 months unless their protections are renewed by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary.

The Trump administration is moving to end TPS for Venezuelans and invoked an 18th-century wartime law to rapidly deport any Venezuelan national 14 and older who is suspected of gang ties.

The Supreme Court has blocked the use of the wartime law over concerns of due process, and has not ruled on the constitutionality of using the law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. But the high court is allowing the Trump administration to continue its efforts to end TPS for Venezuelans who were granted protections in 2023.

Central American migrants

The study also found the population of Central American immigrants grew by 1.2 million from 2013 to 2023. With the highest levels of migration at the southern border in 20 years, the Biden administration in January 2023 created a program to allow nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela – nearly all from Central America – to be sponsored with work visas and have deportation protections.

Roughly 532,000 people are in that program. The Trump administration has made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to end it, potentially opening those immigrants up to rapid deportation.

by Ariana Figueroa, Virginia Mercury

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