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Border and unauthorized immigration

How many people live in the United States without legal status, how they arrived, and what the government does about it.

Last reviewed October 12, 2026

Know

Facts that are not in dispute. Guess first, then see the figure and where it comes from.

"Unauthorized immigrants" is the term the Department of Homeland Security uses in its statistics, and this page uses it throughout. Counts of people living here without legal status are estimates built from Census surveys, so they come with a margin of error. Border and removal figures run by federal fiscal year, which ends September 30.

  1. Out of every 100 people living in the United States, about how many are unauthorized immigrants?

    Slide to make your guess

    About 4 of every 100 people living in the United States are unauthorized immigrants.

    Pew estimates 14 million in 2023, or 4.1% of the population and 27% of everyone born abroad. Estimates differ. The Department of Homeland Security counted 11.0 million in January 2022, and the five estimates collected by the Congressional Research Service range from 11.0 to 14.2 million. Pew says the number likely fell in the first half of 2025, possibly by as much as a million.

    Source: Pew Research Center, U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023; Department of Homeland Security, Office of Homeland Security Statistics, Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2018–January 2022; Congressional Research Service, The Foreign-Born Population of the United States (R48940), table of unauthorized population estimates

  2. Of every 100 unauthorized immigrants living here in 2022, about how many had arrived before 2010?

    Slide to make your guess

    About 79 of every 100 had arrived before 2010.

    That is the Department of Homeland Security's estimate for January 2022, before the large arrivals of 2022 to 2024 were fully counted. It also found that 44% were born in Mexico, and that the largest numbers lived in California (2.6 million) and Texas (2.06 million).

    Source: Department of Homeland Security, Office of Homeland Security Statistics, Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2018–January 2022

  3. Of every 1,000 visitors due to leave by air or sea in fiscal year 2023, about how many stayed past their deadline?

    Slide to make your guess

    About 14 of every 1,000 stayed past their deadline.

    Of 39.0 million visitors expected to leave, 565,155 overstayed, a rate of 1.45%. Many left later. By May 2024, 399,708 of them were believed to still be in the country. The report does not cover visitors who arrived by land. Not everyone here without legal status crossed the border without permission.

    Source: Department of Homeland Security, Fiscal Year 2023 Entry/Exit Overstay Report

  4. Border Patrol recorded a record 2.2 million encounters at the southwest border in fiscal year 2022. About how many did it record in 2025, in thousands?

    Slide to make your guess

    Border Patrol recorded about 238,000 encounters at the southwest border in fiscal year 2025.

    That is the lowest since 1970. The fiscal year began in October 2024, so its first months fell under the previous administration. Encounters count events, not people, and someone caught twice counts twice. The chart below shows each year since 2019.

    Source: Pew Research Center, Migrant Encounters at the U.S.-Mexico Border Are at Their Lowest Level in More Than 50 Years (from Customs and Border Protection data)

  5. About how many people did Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) remove from the country in fiscal year 2024, in thousands?

    Slide to make your guess

    ICE removed about 271,000 people in fiscal year 2024, the most since 2015.

    Of the 271,484 removed, 32.7% had a criminal history. For 2025, a Homeland Security budget document reports 442,637 "removals and returns", a wider measure, so the two years are not directly comparable. The Government Accountability Office has found that ICE does not record its enforcement data consistently.

    Source: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE Releases Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report; Axios, ICE deported 442,000 last fiscal year, first data released under Trump 2.0 shows (citing the DHS budget justification); Government Accountability Office, Immigration Enforcement: Arrests, Removals, and Detentions Varied Over Time and ICE Should Strengthen Data Recording Practices (GAO-24-106233)

  6. Of every 100 people held in ICE detention in November 2025, about how many had been convicted of a crime?

    Slide to make your guess

    About 26 of every 100 had a criminal conviction.

    ICE held 65,135 people on November 16, 2025, and 73.6% of them had never been convicted of any crime. Some in that group had criminal charges pending. Being in the country without permission is a civil violation, not a crime, though entering without inspection is one.

    Source: TRAC, Syracuse University, ICE detention and removal figures from ICE data; 8 U.S. Code § 1325, Improper entry by alien (Legal Information Institute)

  7. On average, how many years does a person who asks for asylum wait for a hearing in immigration court?

    Slide to make your guess

    The average wait for an asylum hearing is about four years.

    Immigration courts had nearly 3.8 million pending cases in mid-2025. The courts are part of the Justice Department, not the federal judiciary.

    Source: Migration Policy Institute, U.S. Immigration Courts at a Crisis Point; Migration Policy Institute, The Dysfunction of the U.S. Immigration Courts

  8. Of every 100 asylum cases the immigration courts closed in fiscal year 2025, about how many ended with asylum granted?

    Slide to make your guess

    About 12 of every 100 closed asylum cases ended with asylum granted.

    About 31 ended in denial. Most of the rest were abandoned, withdrawn or closed without a decision on the claim. The courts decided 267,284 asylum cases that year.

    Source: Congressional Research Service, Immigration Court Decisions in FY2025 (IN12638)

Border Patrol encounters at the southwest border, by fiscal year

Each fiscal year runs October to September, so a year can span two administrations. Before 2020 the count covers apprehensions only. From 2020 it also includes expulsions under a public health order.

  • 2019 (Trump) 851,508
  • 2020 (Trump) 400,651
  • 2021 (Biden from Jan.) 1,659,206
  • 2022 (Biden) 2,206,436
  • 2023 (Biden) 2,045,838
  • 2024 (Biden) 1,530,523
  • 2025 (Trump from Jan.) 237,538

Source: Pew Research Center, Migrant Encounters at the U.S.-Mexico Border Are at Their Lowest Level in More Than 50 Years (from Customs and Border Protection data)

Charts appear here once you have answered or skipped the questions above.

Debate

Questions the facts cannot settle, with the strongest case for each side.

What should happen to unauthorized immigrants who have lived here for years?

Offer a path to legal status

Most are long settled. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 79 of every 100 arrived before 2010, and Pew counts 9.7 million in the workforce, 5.6% of all workers. Many families are mixed: about 320,000 US citizens were born to unauthorized mothers in 2023 alone. ICE removed 271,484 people in 2024, its most since 2015. At that pace, removing 11 to 14 million people would take 40 to 50 years, and at the larger 2025 count of removals and returns, 25 or more. The 1986 law that legalized nearly 2.7 million people raised their wages by as much as 15% within five years.

Enforce the law and remove them

The 1986 law legalized nearly 2.7 million people, and the unauthorized population has roughly tripled since. A second legalization would tell people abroad that entering or overstaying will eventually be forgiven. The population reached a record 14 million in 2023, up from 12.2 million in 2007, and 565,155 visitors overstayed in 2023 alone. When enforcement tightened in 2025, border encounters fell to about 238,000, the lowest since 1970, and Pew estimates the population fell by up to a million in six months (how much policy explains is disputed). Homeland Security counted 442,637 removals and returns that year, showing how quickly enforcement can expand.

Underneath is a disagreement about whether long residence and family ties should outweigh the way someone arrived, and about whether forgiving past violations encourages future ones.

How should the US handle people who ask for asylum at the border?

Hear each claim, and hear it faster

Federal law lets anyone who is physically in the country apply for asylum, however they arrived. It protects people who face persecution for their race, religion, nationality, political views or social group. Turning people away before a hearing would also turn away those who qualify, and courts granted asylum in about 12 of every 100 cases closed in 2025, about 32,000 cases. The real problem is delay. With nearly 3.8 million pending cases and a four-year wait, people with strong claims spend years in limbo and people with weak claims stay just as long. More judges and asylum officers would shorten both.

Limit claims at the border

Of asylum cases closed in 2025, about 31 of every 100 were denied and most of the rest were abandoned or withdrawn, while about 12 were granted. Yet the four-year wait means any claim, strong or weak, buys years in the country, and applicants can apply for a work permit once their case has been pending about 180 days. That gives people an incentive to file claims that will not succeed. Screening claims at the border, or requiring people to seek protection in the first safe country they reach, would keep the system for those who qualify.

Underneath is a disagreement about which mistake is worse, sending someone back to persecution or letting a weak claim become years of residence, and about how much the asylum system should be used to manage migration.

Wording

Terms that frame the argument before it starts. Who uses each one, and what can be checked.

Uncertain

Questions that have a factual answer in principle, where the evidence is still contested.
Do unauthorized immigrants commit more or less crime than people born here?
The most detailed study used Texas arrest records from 2012 to 2018, where immigration status is checked at arrest. It found that people born in the United States were more than twice as likely as unauthorized immigrants to be arrested for violent crimes. Its limits are that it covers one state and depends on how well status is identified when people are arrested. Most national crime statistics do not record immigration status, so the national answer rests on studies like this one. Sources: Light, He and Robey, Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
How many unauthorized immigrants live here now?
The estimates for 2022 and 2023 run from 11.0 to 14.2 million, and none yet covers 2026. Pew believes the number fell by as much as a million in the first half of 2025. The Congressional Budget Office estimates net immigration of all kinds at only 410,000 in 2025, after 2.3 million in 2024. How many left on their own, and how many arrived without being counted, are not known. Sources: Pew Research Center, U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023; Congressional Research Service, The Foreign-Born Population of the United States (R48940), table of unauthorized population estimates; Congressional Budget Office, The Demographic Outlook: 2026 to 2056
How much do a president's policies change the numbers at the border?
Encounters rose sharply in 2021 and fell sharply in 2024 and 2025, both times alongside changes in policy. But crossings also follow conditions in other countries, the economy here, and enforcement by Mexico, which change at the same time. Both sides credit or blame policy when the numbers move their way. Separating the causes is difficult, and there is no agreed estimate. Sources: Pew Research Center, Migrant Encounters at the U.S.-Mexico Border Are at Their Lowest Level in More Than 50 Years (from Customs and Border Protection data)

Sources