Immigration drives highest US population growth in over 2 decades

The influx of migrants into the U.S. in 2024 drove the population to its highest rate of increase in 23 years, as the nation’s population surpassed 340 million, according to a report Thursday from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Between 2023 and 2024, the U.S. population grew by nearly 1%, the highest increase since 2001. In contrast, the 0.2% growth rate in 2021 was a record low at the height of pandemic restrictions on travel into the U.S., the annual population estimates show.

This year, immigration increased by almost 2.8 million people, in part due to a new method of counting that adds people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons.

Net international migration, which the Census Bureau says refers to any change of residence across U.S. borders, was a critical component of the change driving growth in the residential population.

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Net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million person increase last year.

The increase reflects a continued trend of rising international migration, with a net increase of 1.7 million in 2022 and 2.3 million in 2023.

“Improved integration of federal data sources on immigration has enhanced our estimates methodology,” Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections, said. “With this update, we can better understand how the recent increase in international migration is impacting the country’s overall population growth.”

Last year, births outnumbered deaths in the U.S. by almost 519,000, which was an increase over the historic low of 146,000 in 2021, but still well below the high points of the previous decades.

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The U.S. Census Bureau did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the report.

Along with immigration statistics, the report showed that the south was the fastest-growing region in the U.S. in 2024, adding 1.8 million people, more residents than all other regions combined.

Texas saw the biggest increase with 562,941 new residents, followed by Florida, which gained 467,347 new residents.

Washington, D.C., had the nation’s fastest growth rate at 2.2%.

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Some states — Mississippi, Vermont and West Virginia — lost population in 2024, though in small amounts ranging from 127 to 516 people.

Those included in the international migration estimates this year are a group of people who entered the U.S. through the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole, which has been harshly criticized by Republicans.

The Migration Policy Institute based in Washington, D.C., reported last week that over 5.8 million people were admitted under various humanitarian policies from 2021 to 2024.

But capturing the number of new immigrants is a challenging aspect of U.S. population estimates.

The bureau’s annual calculation of how many migrants entered the United States in the 2020s has been much lower than the numbers cited by other federal agencies, such as the Congressional Budget Office. The Census Bureau estimated 1.1 million immigrants had entered the United States in 2023, while the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate was 3.3 million people. 

With the revised method, last year’s immigration figures are now recalculated by the Census Bureau to almost 2.3 million people, or an additional 1.1 million people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.