How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the US? The 14 Million Estimate

An estimated 14 million people were living in the United States without legal immigration status in 2023, according to the Pew Research Center, the highest number ever recorded.¹ The Department of Homeland Security’s most recent official estimate is lower, putting the figure at roughly 11 million as of January 2022. Pew’s number is a year more recent, and the two-year gap between them captured a historic surge in arrivals. The Center for Migration Studies, using its own methodology, put the 2022 figure at 10.94 million, close to the DHS number for the same year.²

Pew’s 14 million figure grew by 3.5 million in just two years, the fastest increase on record. The previous peak was 12.2 million in 2007, followed by more than a decade of relative stability at around 10.5 to 11 million through the 2010s before the recent jump.¹

Who Gets Counted in the 14 Million

Pew’s count is broader than many readers assume. It includes not only people who crossed the border without inspection or overstayed a visa, but also people who currently hold some form of temporary deportation protection. That includes recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Temporary Protected Status (TPS), pending asylum applicants, and parolees. These groups are counted as unauthorized because their protections are temporary and can be revoked.¹

About 6 million of the 14 million held one of these protections as of mid-2023:

2.6 million with pending asylum claims
1 million released by Border Patrol with orders to appear in immigration court
700,000 with protective statuses for victims of crime and violence
700,000 parolees who entered legally through parole programs
650,000 TPS holders from designated countries
600,000 DACA enrollees brought to the country as children

The remaining roughly 8 million had no form of legal protection. For comparison, at the 2007 peak of 12.2 million, only about 500,000 people were in a protected category.¹ The rapid growth in temporary protection categories is what most distinguishes today’s population from earlier peaks.

How the Estimate Is Built

No agency conducts a direct count. Researchers rely on what is called the residual method. They start with the total foreign-born population measured by the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, then subtract everyone known to hold legal status: naturalized citizens, green card holders, refugees, and visa holders. What remains is the estimated unauthorized population.³

The complication is that Census surveys undercount foreign-born people, especially those trying to avoid government detection. Analysts apply correction factors, cross-referencing administrative records of admissions and departures against survey responses.⁴ The Census Bureau has also updated its methodology to incorporate administrative data that better captures populations surveys tend to miss.⁵ Every estimate still carries a margin of uncertainty, which is why different organizations release somewhat different numbers even for the same year.

One academic study using an inflow-outflow model rather than the residual method suggested the unauthorized population could have reached 16.2 to 29.5 million in 2017. DHS reviewed that study and found the divergence was driven almost entirely by assumptions about growth during the 1990s, when reliable data was scarce, and expressed little confidence in the higher figures.² The mainstream consensus clusters in the 11 to 14 million range.

What Drove the Recent Jump

The population held roughly steady at 10.5 to 11 million through the 2010s.² The jump from about 10.5 million in 2021 to 14 million in 2023 came after the pandemic, with a sharp rise in encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border and expanded use of humanitarian parole programs. Much of the increase came from people who received some form of temporary deportation protection upon arrival, a category that barely existed at this scale before 2020.¹

Where They Came From

Mexico is still the single largest country of origin, with about 4.3 million unauthorized immigrants as of 2023. That represents roughly 40 percent of the total, down from a clear majority through 2016. The Mexican-born unauthorized population has been essentially flat for years, growing only slightly from 2021 to 2023 and returning to its 2019 level.¹

Almost all recent growth came from elsewhere. The unauthorized population from countries other than Mexico rose from 6.4 million in 2021 to 9.7 million in 2023. Central America contributed the largest increases, led by Guatemalans (850,000), Salvadorans (850,000), and Hondurans (775,000). India (680,000) is now one of the top origin countries. Venezuela’s unauthorized population went from 55,000 in 2007 to 650,000 in 2023, and Cuba’s rose from fewer than 5,000 in 2019 to 475,000 four years later.¹

Where They Live

The population is concentrated in a few states. California and Texas alone account for about 42 percent of the total, with Florida and New York rounding out the top four destination states.² That concentration has been loosening for years as jobs in construction, agriculture, and food processing have drawn workers to states across the Southeast and Midwest.

How People Become Unauthorized

There are two basic paths into unauthorized status: crossing the border outside an official checkpoint, or entering legally and staying past the authorized period. An estimated 42 percent of the unauthorized population entered through legal channels and then overstayed, and that share has grown over time.⁶

Entering outside an official port of entry is a federal misdemeanor, punishable by a fine or up to six months in jail for a first offense and up to two years for a repeat offense.⁷ Overstaying a visa is not a separate criminal offense, but it makes the person deportable and can trigger bars on future legal entry.⁸

DHS tracks overstays through its entry-exit system. In fiscal year 2023, about 565,000 nonimmigrants overstayed their authorized period. After accounting for people who departed late or adjusted to lawful status, roughly 400,000 were still suspected to be in the country as of May 2024.⁹ Those are overstays from a single fiscal year; the cumulative effect of decades of annual overstays is what builds the larger population over time.

1
Pew Research Center. U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023
2
Office of Homeland Security Statistics. Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States January 2018 – January 2022
3
Pew Research Center. Methodology A: Unauthorized Immigrant Estimates
4
Social Security Administration. Measuring the Number of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States: A Review of the Residual Estimation Method
5
U.S. Census Bureau. Census Bureau Improves Methodology to Better Estimate Increase in Net International Migration
6
Congressional Research Service. Nonimmigrant Overstays: Overview and Policy Issues
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1325 – Improper Entry by Alien
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1227 – Deportable Aliens
9
Department of Homeland Security. Entry/Exit Overstay Report Fiscal Year 2023