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Quick Immigration Statistics: United States

The Immigrant Learning Center has compiled key statistics on immigrants in the United States to answer your most pressing questions about the current immigration landscape in the U.S.

If you’re looking for more detailed data or want to examine specific immigrant populations, you can request a free, personalized fact sheet through the Immigration Data on Demand service from our partner, the Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University

To learn more about the immigrants of our home state of Massachusetts, visit our Quick Immigration Statistics: Massachusetts or Quick Immigration Statistics: Boston pages.

If you have questions or suggestions about our Quick Immigration Stats, feel free to contact us at public.education@ilctr.org.

There are approximately 44 million immigrants in the United States.

How many immigrants are there in the United States, and who are they?

There are approximately 44 million immigrants in the United States.

About one in every eight U.S. residents (13.7%) is foreign-born.

Source: U.S. Census 2022 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates

The five largest immigrant populations in the United States are from:

Source: U.S. Census 2022 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates

What is the migration status of immigrants in the United States?

The majority of U.S. immigrants (77.7%) have authorization.

Source: Pew Research Center estimates based on augmented 2021
U.S. Census Bureau data

More than half (52.2%) of all immigrants have become United States citizens.

Source: U.S. Census 2022 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates

How do immigrants impact the United States workforce?

Immigrants have a higher workforce participation rate.*

Source: U.S. Census 2022 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates

*The workforce participation rate is calculated by dividing the number of people working and those actively seeking work by the number of non-institutionalized, working-age (16-65) civilians.

Immigrants, particularly refugees, have higher self-employment rates.

Source: U.S. Census 2022 American Community Survey 5-year Estimates and American Immigration Council, 2019

Nearly one third (31%) of new U.S. businesses are founded by immigrants.

Source: Indicators of Entrepreneurial Activity, UCLA, Jan. 2024