Illegal population grew by at least 50 percent. What is Congress prepared to do?

The final reckoning of the Biden Administration’s immigration and enforcement policies has yet to come, but the 2021-2025 era was clearly historic. By multiple measures, this was the largest wave of immigration in U.S. history.

Eric Ruark, NumbersUSA’s Director of Research and Sustainability, reports that illegal immigration totaled between 10,000,000 and 12,525,000 over President Biden’s term.

“Some have argued that the illegal alien population was much higher than the most commonly accepted estimates,” Ruark acknowledges. “Demographers do not see evidence to support these higher numbers,” he adds, noting that that some number of illegal aliens return home, die, or adjust their status every year. The broad point, however, is that illegal immigration thrived over the last four years, thanks in large part to programs and policies that the administration created.

The Biden Administration also quadrupled the Temporary Protected Status program (TPS) that shields illegal aliens from deportation. In theory, TPS is there to provide short-term relief when countries are unable to accept their citizens due to political strife or natural disaster. In reality, there is nothing more permanent than TPS. Over a million people were given TPS over just four years.

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that illegal immigration accounted for roughly two-thirds of the record increase in the foreign-born population over the last four years. More than ten million people – the equivalent of the entire population of Michigan – are working illegally in the United States. The Trump administration could double its current deportation pace and only get to one-sixth of illegal workers by the time he leaves office. In other words, the Executive Branch can’t do this without Congress passing an E-Verify law.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates there are now 18 million people in the U.S. illegally. They revised their estimate after a December update from the Census Bureau identified a couple of million people their previous analysis had missed.

“The Bureau also logged an increase of 2.8 million migrants who arrived between mid-2023 and mid-2024, Michael Capuano writes. “In each year, most of these were classified as “humanitarian migrants.” It turns out, the Biden administration was letting in these migrants (mostly illegal aliens) so quickly that the Census Bureau simply couldn’t count them using its traditional methods.”

Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler at CIS offer a slightly more conservative number: “Although some immigrants are missed by government surveys, our preliminary estimate is that there are 15.4 million illegal immigrants in the January 2025 CPS, an increase of more than 50 percent (5.4 million) over the last four years in the survey.”

This much is clear, the size of the illegal population has grown significantly over the past few years, reaching somewhere between 15-19 million. If the illegal population had their own state, they would be the fifth most populous in the country. New York City just re-signed a billion dollar contract to put migrants up in hotels that’s renewable through 2029. Biden’s border crisis is over, but the fallout will be with us for years.

What is Congress prepared to do?

The Trump administration has been as clear as any in history that they will deport people who are in the country illegally. Ruark asks the more pertinent question:

“Republicans have control of the White House and both chambers of Congress at least until 2027, albeit with a very narrow majority. Campaigning often proves more difficult than governing. The question remains: Will the federal government reestablish the rule of law and regain control of the U.S. immigration system, not just by presidential executive orders, but by substantive changes that can survive the fluctuations of partisan politics?”

The answer is far from clear. Consider these two numbers: Two Hundred vs. Eight

• More than 200 Members of Congress have signed on to an amnesty that would keep illegal aliens in the country.
• Eight Members of Congress have signed on to an E-Verify bill that would make it more difficult to live and work illegally.

Does that look like a Congress that’s ready to prevent the next border crisis?

Not according to the Minority Leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, who just this argued that the way to fix our “broken immigration system” is to primarily help people who violate immigration laws to remain in the United States:

“We have a broken immigration system in America, and we need to fix it in a bipartisan and comprehensive way. We need to defend our Dreamers and our farmworkers, and we need to defend our families, and more needs to be done. At the same time, we of course, have to secure the border to make sure that we are keeping every community safe….

“…Well, every single Republican supported the Laken Riley Act. The overwhelming majority of Democrats opposed it, myself included. We do recognize that our immigration system, for far too long, has been broken. We need to create legal pathways toward citizenship. We’re committed to doing that. In the past, under the Biden administration, we passed the Dream and Promise Act, we passed the Farmworker Modernization Act, but unfortunately, Republicans blocked it.”

Minority Leader Jeffries’ comments epitomize the immigration viewpoint of what the economist Thomas Piketty call the “Brahmin Left.”

“Immigration is a natural issue for the Brahmin left,” according to David Leonhardt, author of Ours Was The Shining Future. “The old left worried that a labor pool swollen by immigration would undermine unions and lower wages. The new progressives focused instead on the large benefits for the new arrivals.”

Leonhardt and Democratic strategists such as Ruy Teixeira argue that this “Brahmin Left” immigration policy is an existential threat to the Party as well as the working class.

“Not only might the continued desertion of working-class (non-college) voters fatally undermine the Democrats’ electoral formula over time,” writes Teixeira, founder of the Liberal Patriot, but “the party’s fundamental purpose is being rapidly obliterated.”

“From the moment his political career began in Trump Tower 10 years ago, immigration has been his most salient issue,” Leonhardt reminds his readers in the New York Times Magazine.

Elected Democrats are also concerned. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) wasn’t responding to Jeffries’ comments when he tweeted “Telling people to invalidate their eyes or experiences and WE LOSE.  Equivalent size of Pittsburgh showing up every month at our border was true chaos,” but the sentiment applies.

In Contrast to House Minority Leader Jeffries’ comments, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has promised his Republican majority’s focus on passing “many” critical steps to address voters concerns with illegal immigration.

Florida sets a good example

In the Florida State Legislature, Democrats and Republicans are competing with each other to be recognized as the most pro-E-Verify. Florida already requires employers with 25 or more employees to verify their work authorization. Repbublican Rep. Berny Jacques has a bill to expand that to all employers. Democratic Minority Leader Jason Pizzo has a bill to require independent contractors and any worker who puts in 40 hours on a given project to be E-Verified.

“What you have to understand is that the common denominator, the actual impetus [to migrate], is jobs and employment,” Pizzo said according to Pluribus News. “If you turn that off at the source, and the world finds out that you don’t play around, and you mean what you say — that’s when the message starts getting out.”

Meanwhile in the U.S. Congress, most lawmakers don’t appear to even have E-Verify on their radar.

Actions speak louder than words

The 119th Congress is just two and a half months old and some very good first steps have been taken, but it’s not too soon to start referencing NumbersUSA’s Immigration-Reduction Grade Cards to see where your elected members of Congress need to get to work.

For every elected Member of Congress talking a good game about restoring trust in our immigration enforcement system, like Sean Connery in The Untouchables we must ask: what are you prepared to do?