President Biden’s wave of new illegal immigrants is upending the usual demographics of immigration and sending the education levels plummeting, according to a new report Thursday that raised big questions about the country’s ability to absorb the newcomers.
There are now 13.7 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., and 51.4 million immigrants overall — an increase of 6.4 million in three years since Mr. Biden took office, the Center for Immigration Studies reported. That averages 172,000 new immigrants each month, or roughly four times the rate in the Trump years and nearly three times the rate in the Obama years.
Most of the new arrivals are from Latin America and 3.7 million of the net new arrivals came illegally. Some 44% have no education beyond high school, and a significant number didn’t even complete high school.
“Education is the single best predictor of how you’re going to do in the United States. What kind of job you’re going to do. How much you’re going to make. What fraction are going to be in or near poverty. What fraction are going to qualify for welfare programs — particularly their children,” said Steven A. Camarota, the study’s lead author.
As recently as 2018, 55% of immigrants had a bachelor’s degree. That’s now dipped to just 41%. Meanwhile, the share who didn’t make it past high school has risen from 29% to 44%, Mr. Camarota figures. Those changes challenge a chief selling point for backers of high immigration rates.
“The improvement in the education level of recent immigrants was a very positive sign that at least a smaller fraction of new arrivals were likely to struggle in the United States. But that’s changed, at least for now,” he said.
The U.S. now has by far the largest ratio of immigrants in its population, at 15.5%, up nearly 2 percentage points since 2020. The previous record was 14.8% in 1890.
The Census Bureau just last year figured the U.S. wouldn’t hit 15.5% until nearly 2040, and Mr. Camarota said the fact that the U.S. is already there shows just how unprecedented the current immigration surge is.
The new calculations come amid an intensifying debate over immigrants’ role in the U.S. economy.
Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office say growth in gross domestic product has been surprisingly robust over the last couple of years, and they say the likely explanation is the surge of newcomers. More people means more labor, boosting the overall productivity of the country.
“In addition to reinforcing a body of research showing the positive effects of immigration on the country’s economy and federal tax revenues, these reports suggest recent arrivals will benefit the country overall as they integrate into the labor market and become essential to the U.S. workforce, like past migrants in the Latino community,” Cristobal Ramon and Viktor Olah wrote in a piece for Unidos, a major Hispanic rights group.
But Mr. Camarota said that doesn’t mean workers themselves are better off.
GDP is roughly 1% higher thanks to the new arrivals, but the population is 2% higher. That means the gains are diluted among even more people.
“Immigration makes the economy larger and it makes per capita GDP lower,” Mr. Camarota said.
Some Americans come out ahead, but those at the lower education levels, who now have to compete with more immigrants at those same education levels, will end up worse off.
Mr. Camarota has been closely tracking the numbers over the last few years.
He uses the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, which reports monthly. It’s the same dataset used to calculate the unemployment rate each month.
The numbers give a different perspective on what’s happening at the border, where Homeland Security has recorded about 9 million encounters with unauthorized migrants since February 2021, the first full month under Mr. Biden.
Many of those were turned back or quickly removed by the government, and still others left on their own. Some of the unauthorized population gained legal status and others died.
The result is 3.7 million net new illegal immigrants.
That’s still probably an undercount, based on the CPS’s tendency to miss illegal immigrants in its methodology, Mr. Camarota said.