Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country’s economic rebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world.
That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
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Immigrant workers also recovered much faster than native-born workers from the pandemic’s disruptions, and many saw some of the largest wage gains in industries eager to hire. Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.
“Immigration has not slowed. It has just been absolutely astronomical,” said Pia Orrenius, vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “And that’s been instrumental. You can’t grow like this with just the native workforce. It’s not possible.”
Trump vs. Biden on immigration: 12 charts comparing U.S. border security
Yet immigration remains an intensely polarizing issue in American politics. Fresh survey data from Gallup showed Americans now cite immigration as the country’s top problem, surpassing inflation, the economy and issues with government. A record number of migrants have crossed the southern border since President Biden took office, with apprehensions topping 2 million for the second straight year in fiscal 2023, among the highest in U.S. history. Cities like New York, Chicago and Denver have struggled to keep up with busloads of immigrants sent from Texas who are overwhelming local shelters.
Washington is deadlocked on a solution to the crisis. Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats voted down a sweeping $118 billion national security package that included changes to the nation’s asylum system and a way to effectively close the border to most migrants when crossings are particularly high. House Republican leadership called the legislation “dead on arrival,” which seemed all but guaranteed after former president Donald Trump came out strongly in opposition.
Opinion polls show that voters widely disapprove of Biden’s handling of the border, and Trump, who is closing in on the Republican nomination, is touting plans for aggressive deportation policies if he wins in November. Republicans have increasingly campaigned on the idea that immigrants have hurt the economy and taken Americans’ jobs. But the economic record largely shows the opposite.
There isn’t much data on how many of the new immigrants in recent years were documented versus undocumented. But estimates from the Pew Research Center last fall showed that undocumented immigrants made up 22 percent of the total foreign-born U.S. population in 2021. That’s down compared to previous decades: Between 2007 and 2021, the undocumented population fell by 14 percent, Pew found. Meanwhile, the legal immigrant population grew by 29 percent.
Whoever wins the election will take the helm of an economy that immigrant workers are supporting tremendously — and likely will keep powering for years to come.
Senate GOP blocks border deal; future of Ukraine, Israel aid unclear
Fresh estimates from the Congressional Budget Office this month said the U.S. labor force in 2023 had grown by 5.2 million people, thanks especially to net immigration. The economy is projected to grow by $7 trillion more over the next decade than it would have without new influxes of immigrants, according to the CBO.
Alexander Santander, 49, is among those immigrants. Santander trekked for two months with his family, including two young children, from Venezuela to the Texas border last fall to seek asylum. He said it was a “very, very traumatic” journey that involved many nights sleeping on cardboard in the jungle.
For Santander, who is on humanitarian parole as he waits for his asylum case to be processed, the decision to uproot his life in Venezuela, where he worked as an operating room nurse, was difficult but necessary, he said. His family had faced years of food shortages and, more recently, threats for protesting the government.
“Thank God we made it here,” Santander, who now works in manufacturing in Denver, said in Spanish. “We have many more opportunities and already a better quality of life.”
That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market’s extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every weekend.
Immigrant workers also recovered much faster than native-born workers from the pandemic’s disruptions, and many saw some of the largest wage gains in industries eager to hire. Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country’s ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns.
“Immigration has not slowed. It has just been absolutely astronomical,” said Pia Orrenius, vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “And that’s been instrumental. You can’t grow like this with just the native workforce. It’s not possible.”
Trump vs. Biden on immigration: 12 charts comparing U.S. border security
Yet immigration remains an intensely polarizing issue in American politics. Fresh survey data from Gallup showed Americans now cite immigration as the country’s top problem, surpassing inflation, the economy and issues with government. A record number of migrants have crossed the southern border since President Biden took office, with apprehensions topping 2 million for the second straight year in fiscal 2023, among the highest in U.S. history. Cities like New York, Chicago and Denver have struggled to keep up with busloads of immigrants sent from Texas who are overwhelming local shelters.
Washington is deadlocked on a solution to the crisis. Senate Republicans and a handful of Democrats voted down a sweeping $118 billion national security package that included changes to the nation’s asylum system and a way to effectively close the border to most migrants when crossings are particularly high. House Republican leadership called the legislation “dead on arrival,” which seemed all but guaranteed after former president Donald Trump came out strongly in opposition.
Opinion polls show that voters widely disapprove of Biden’s handling of the border, and Trump, who is closing in on the Republican nomination, is touting plans for aggressive deportation policies if he wins in November. Republicans have increasingly campaigned on the idea that immigrants have hurt the economy and taken Americans’ jobs. But the economic record largely shows the opposite.
There isn’t much data on how many of the new immigrants in recent years were documented versus undocumented. But estimates from the Pew Research Center last fall showed that undocumented immigrants made up 22 percent of the total foreign-born U.S. population in 2021. That’s down compared to previous decades: Between 2007 and 2021, the undocumented population fell by 14 percent, Pew found. Meanwhile, the legal immigrant population grew by 29 percent.
Whoever wins the election will take the helm of an economy that immigrant workers are supporting tremendously — and likely will keep powering for years to come.
Senate GOP blocks border deal; future of Ukraine, Israel aid unclear
Fresh estimates from the Congressional Budget Office this month said the U.S. labor force in 2023 had grown by 5.2 million people, thanks especially to net immigration. The economy is projected to grow by $7 trillion more over the next decade than it would have without new influxes of immigrants, according to the CBO.
Alexander Santander, 49, is among those immigrants. Santander trekked for two months with his family, including two young children, from Venezuela to the Texas border last fall to seek asylum. He said it was a “very, very traumatic” journey that involved many nights sleeping on cardboard in the jungle.
For Santander, who is on humanitarian parole as he waits for his asylum case to be processed, the decision to uproot his life in Venezuela, where he worked as an operating room nurse, was difficult but necessary, he said. His family had faced years of food shortages and, more recently, threats for protesting the government.
“Thank God we made it here,” Santander, who now works in manufacturing in Denver, said in Spanish. “We have many more opportunities and already a better quality of life.”
