Between 2021 and 2024, the United States had the highest level of immigration in its history.
That was the conclusion of a New York Times analysis published in late 2024. It estimated that over the four years of President Joe Biden’s administration, about eight million people had immigrated. This movement of people, powered by asylum claimants crossing the Mexican border, represented, said the Times, “a faster pace of arrivals than during any other period on record, including the peak years of Ellis Island, when millions of Europeans came to the United States.”
“Even after taking into account today’s larger U.S. population, the recent surge is the most rapid since at least 1850.”
