How high is current immigration to the United States in historical perspective?

Ask Americans about the top concerns for the United States, and immigration is rarely far from the top of the list. It’s a topic that dominates election cycles and divides public opinion.

That raises a broader historical question: how high are current immigration levels compared to what the United States has experienced before?

This article looks at Census Bureau data stretching back to 1850 to explore that question. We first look at what the data captures, then explore how the number of immigrants and their share of the US population have changed over time.

As is often the case, the data shows that the answer depends on what you’re comparing and how far back in time you go.

Tracking immigration with long-run US census data

One way to understand the scale of immigration is to look at how many immigrants live in the US. The Census Bureau calls this the “foreign-born population”: people living in the US who were not US citizens at birth. This is the demographic we look at in this article.

Under the Census Bureau’s definition, someone who moved to the US decades ago and has since become a citizen is still included in this foreign-born category.[1]

The Census Bureau also aims to include immigrants regardless of their legal status, so these totals cover both legal and illegal immigration, without separating the two.[2]

To put these numbers in perspective, we also need to account for the growth of the overall US population. A larger country can have more immigrant residents without immigrants making up a larger share of the population. So we examine the foreign-born population both in absolute numbers and in relative terms, as a share of the total population.

Let’s look at what the historical data shows from these two perspectives.

The US immigrant population is much larger today than at any point in the 19th and 20th centuries

In 2024, 50 million people born outside of the United States were living there.

As the chart below shows, the increase to this level was not steady. The foreign-born population grew from around 2 million in 1850 to 10 million in 1900 and continued to rise until 1930. It then declined for four decades, reaching a low in 1970. After that, there has been a large, sustained rise.

You can explore the year-to-year changes or compare average annual changes across decades in our companion interactive charts.

On this measure, the 2024 figure is an all-time high in the series. But the United States is also a much larger country than it was in the 19th and 20th centuries. To understand how the immigrant population fits into that wider change, we can look at its share of the total population.

Relative to the total population, immigration is close to its 19th-century peak

When we look at immigrant numbers relative to the total US population, we get a different picture.

In the late 1800s, immigrants made up roughly 13% to 15% of the US population. Through the early 20th century, this share fell dramatically, reaching a low of just under 5% in 1970. After that, the share rose steadily, reaching around 15% by 2024, approximately the same as the 19th-century peak.

If we looked only at the trend for the last 100 years, we would conclude that today’s share is unprecedented. But looking further back in time shows that the US has had a similarly large share of immigrants before.

Where immigrants were born has changed

Immigrants made up roughly the same share of the US population in 2024 as in 1890. But behind these similar shares are differences in where immigrants were born.

At the turn of the 20th century, most immigrants living in the US were from Europe. As the immigrant population grew again after 1970, much of that growth came from people born in Latin America and Asia. Our chart of US immigrants by region of birth shows how each region’s share of the overall immigrant population has changed over time.

Looking at individual countries adds more detail. In 1900, many immigrants were born in Germany and Ireland, while Canada was the largest source outside Europe. By 2024, Mexico was the most common country of birth by far, followed by India and China.

Conclusion

Where does this leave us on the original question: how high is current immigration to the US in historical perspective? Is it unprecedented?

If we look at the number of foreign-born residents, the 2024 estimate was the highest in the Census Bureau’s series, which stretches back to 1850. So, on that measure, the 2024 figure was unprecedented.

But the population of the United States has also grown. Relative to the total population, the share of immigrants in 2024 was approximately the same as in 1890. If we only look at the last few decades, we miss this historical perspective — there have been periods where immigrants made up a similarly large share of the country.

Of course, migration patterns have changed substantially in other ways. One example is where immigrants were born. At the turn of the 20th century, most of the foreign-born population came from European countries. Today, Latin America and Asia account for much larger shares.

You can read more about where migrants come from, where they live, and how migration is changing in the US and around the world on our Migration topic page.

Endnotes

1] The[ Census Bureau’s definition includes unauthorized migrants and naturalized citizens. People born abroad who were US citizens at birth are excluded. Census surveys do not directly collect legal immigration status. The historical series combines census data with the American Community Survey; the 2024 total comes from table B05002.

2] Some people are missed in censuses and surveys, and Census surveys do not directly collect legal immigration status. This data does not tell us how many people crossed the border illegally in a particular year, or how many were stopped from entering. We explain more about these distinctions on our [Migration topic page, including the definitions of legal and illegal migration.

Where this page came from

This page was imported from Our World in Data. “How high is current immigration to the United States in historical perspective?” by Hannah Ritchie, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, Edouard Mathieu, published by Our World in Data under CC BY 4.0. Changed here: set as a page, its interactive charts shown as pictures. Data from third parties keeps its own licence.

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