FAQ Unauthorized immigrants and the economy

Immigration is among the most important economic and political issues and a main topic of discourse and debate among policymakers and the public. But misperceptions persist about many fundamental aspects of this crucial topic, such as:

  • the size and composition of the immigrant population
  • the effects of immigration on the economy and workforce
  • the difference between permanent immigration pathways that lead to green cards versus temporary and precarious immigration statuses
  • various other facets of the U.S. employment-based migration system
  • policy options for reform

This document provides essential background and facts, as well as answers to frequently asked questions, including relevant data, charts, and extensive citations to key sources.

How many unauthorized immigrants live in the United States?

There are a handful of existing estimates on the number of persons in the United States who lack an immigration status. These persons are often referred to as undocumented immigrants, unauthorized immigrants, or irregular migrants. The four most recent and commonly cited statistics on the size of the unauthorized immigrant population come from:

  • the Migration Policy Institute, which has estimated the population at 13.7 million in 20231
  • the Center for Migration Studies, which has estimated the population at 11.7 million in 20232
  • the Pew Research Center, which has estimated the population at 11 million in 2022, accounting for 3.3% of the total U.S. population and 23% of the total foreign-born population3
  • the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which estimated the population at 11.0 million in 20224

Which regions and countries are unauthorized immigrants from?

Table 1, which comes from the Migration Policy Institute,9 shows the top-10 countries of origin for the unauthorized immigrant population in 2023. Forty percent of all unauthorized immigrants hail from Mexico, at 5.5 million out of the total 13.7 million. The share from Mexico has declined over the years, decreasing from 62% in 2010.10 

How many unauthorized immigrants work in the United States?

According to the Pew Research Center, the total number of unauthorized immigrants in the labor force was 8.3 million in 2022, which represented just under 5% of the total U.S. workforce and 3% of the total U.S. population.

What share of unauthorized immigrants work in the U.S.? Which occupations employ the most unauthorized immigrants?

A 2022 estimate from the Center for Migration Policy’s data tool on the unauthorized immigrant population15 is represented in Table 1 and shows that 74.1% of the unauthorized immigrant population were employed in 2022, with 3.1% unemployed, and 22.8% who were not in the labor force at the time. 

What is the fiscal impact of unauthorized immigrants at the state and federal level?

There is a broad consensus that immigration reduces overall budget deficits (or the present value of the long-run net fiscal impact of immigration overall, at all levels of government combined, is small but positive). As detailed in a 2017 National Academies of Sciences report and related research, the net effect is positive over the lifetimes of immigrants, their children, and grandchildren.16 

Unauthorized immigrants are generally ineligible for public benefits like SNAP and SSI.

Unauthorized immigrants are, by and large, ineligible for public support and social insurance programs because of their immigration status. They are excluded, for example, from such programs as non-emergency Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and most housing assistance programs. Unauthorized immigrants are also ineligible for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and cannot purchase insurance through the ACA Marketplace (i.e., exchanges). 

What will mass deportation do to the economy?

Deporting the entire unauthorized immigrant population would require astronomical direct resources and costs,30 and even aside from the additional humanitarian concerns, it would disrupt and hurt the economy and the jobs situation in the United States.31 

What are the policy options for current U.S. residents who are unauthorized immigrants?

The best solution—and the only durable one—for the unauthorized immigrant population is for Congress to pass legislation that regularizes the status of unauthorized immigrants by allowing them to adjust to lawful permanent resident status (in other words, provide them with a path to citizenship) and for the president to sign it. Only Congress has the power to provide a permanent immigration status to an individual or a group of individuals; it cannot be granted by the executive branch alone. 

If unauthorized immigrants get legal status, how would this improve wages and labor standards for all workers?

All persons in the United States have—at least on paper—basic labor and employment rights under U.S. law, which in theory, should protect them from lawbreaking employers. However, the extent to which those rights are able to be exercised and the extent to which they are enforceable in practice depends very much on immigration status because of the power that employers have over workers vis-à-vis that immigration status and because of how employers can exploit that power. If workers lack a regular immigration status or only have a temporary one that employers can control (for instance, through a temporary work visa), they can use the fear of retaliation and deportation against workers to underpay them, not provide required safety equipment, or break other workplace laws. 

Do immigrant workers affect wages for U.S. workers?

The most rigorous work on the effect of immigration on wages finds extremely modest effects for native-born workers, including those with low levels of education. A review by Giovanni Peri of more than 270 estimates from 27 published studies found that the average effect of immigration on native-born wages is essentially zero.48

Immigration policy often favors employers over workers and needs to be reformed

To the extent that there are challenges with respect to the nexus of immigration and wages, it is not related to the scale of immigration flows, nor to the characteristics of immigrants, but instead from employers who take advantage of migrant and immigrant workers who lack an immigration status or only have a temporary or precarious status. One need look no further than the landmark study and survey of 4,300 workers in three major cities that found that unauthorized immigrants were more than twice as likely to be victims of wage theft for minimum wage violations than U.S.-born citizens (37.1% to 15.6%).57 Further, the study found that an astounding 84.9% of unauthorized immigrants were not paid the overtime wages they worked for and were legally entitled to.