The U.S. unauthorized immigrant population rose to an estimated 14 million in 2023, the highest level ever recorded, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. The figure jumped from 11.8 million one year earlier, marking the largest two-year increase since Pew began tracking the data in 1990. Pew attributes the surge largely to about 6 million people who entered or remained in the country under temporary protections—such as asylum claims, humanitarian parole or other deferred-deportation programs—expanded during the final years of the Biden administration. More than 40 percent of those counted as unauthorized in 2023 held some form of legal protection, Pew said. Growth was concentrated outside the traditional migrant source of Mexico. Sharp increases came from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Venezuela, Cuba and several other South American nations. Florida added roughly 700,000 unauthorized residents between 2021 and 2023, the largest gain of any state, followed by Texas (+450,000), California (+425,000) and New York (+230,000). Pew estimates 9.7 million unauthorized immigrants were in the U.S. workforce last year, accounting for 5.6 percent of all workers. Separately, Pew found the overall foreign-born population—regardless of legal status—fell to 51.9 million in June 2025 from a record 53.3 million in January, a net loss of about 1.4 million people. It is the first six-month decline in U.S. immigrant numbers since the 1960s and trims the immigrant share of the population to 15.4 percent. Researchers said the contraction follows a slowdown in late-2024 after tougher asylum limits under former President Joe Biden and has accelerated under President Donald Trump’s stepped-up arrests, detentions and visa scrutiny in 2025. Preliminary figures suggest the unauthorized total, while still near the 2023 peak, has begun to edge down this year. Pew noted that its record number remains well below Trump’s public claim of 21 million.