Hi, i I'm Steve Balmer. I spent 34 years
growing Microsoft, 10 years owning the LA Clippers basketball team. I love computers, data,
and facts. That's why I started USAFacts. To help understand what our government is up to and what's
going on in America. I'll share with you the facts and data, all from our government, you make up
your own mind. In this episode of just the facts: immigration. But first, a quick disclaimer.
As I talk I do a lot of rounding of numbers, but the data you see on screen will be more exact.
So now, let's roll. Please note: there's such a swirl of activity on this issue that things
might have changed since I recorded this in mid June. I can't predict the future, but I'll
be reading about it when it happens. Most of us have an immigrant story. My maternal grandparents
came to the US from what was then Russia, and my father came from Switzerland. What we're focused
on here is how the immigration system works today, and what the data says about how many immigrants
we have coming into the country. I've put things into three groups. First, authorized immigrants,
whose visas offer no path to citizenship. This includes people allowed here on a temporary basis
to work or attend school, or to be with family. While visas are also given to tens of millions of
people each year visiting on a short-term basis, like vacation, I'm going to focus on those who
live here as temporary residents of the United States. Category two is authorized immigrants
who have the opportunity to follow a path to citizenship. This includes those sponsored by
a relative or employer, as well as people who have been granted asylum or refugee status.
Category three is unauthorized immigrants. This is a government term that is a bit misleading
because, as we've researched it, I've learned that it included those who are here in violation of our
laws, but also those who are here seeking asylum according to laws as they have existed since 1980,
as well as migrants who are preapproved to come to the United States due to humanitarian crises,
like what's happening in Haiti or Ukraine. There are others in this unauthorized category that are
actually entitled to be in the country, but more on this later. Okay, now that we have identified
our immigration categorie, let's dig into group one. In 2022, the federal government awarded just
over 2 million non-immigrant visas— that do not have a path to citizenship— but do allow people to
live temporarily in the United States. These visas include everything from temporary agricultural
workers, to the H1B visas we would have used at Microsoft, reserved for those who must have
at least a bachelor's degree. Foreign students took up another 700,000 visas. People coming here
to join family is another 330,000. In group two, those living here on an authorized basis with
the option of a path to citizenship, are the recipients of about 500,000 immigrant visas,
granted mostly to those with a relative who is a citizen who lives here. Some of these visas also
go to immigrants who are coming here for work, who are adopted, or who are among the 50,000 people
who win a spot from the annual global lottery, held to diversify America's immigrant pool. Once
these visa recipients arrive in the United States, they are transferred to Green Card status.
In 2022, there was also an additional 500,000 immigrants who received green cards who are
already in the United States. That's a so-called "adjustment of status". A green card is kind
of like Willy Wonka's golden ticket if you're an immigrant, it allows you to stay in the US
for up to 10 years before you need to renew it, and it does provide a path to citizenship.
Refugees are approved to come here while abroad, and about 26,000 of them came to the United
States in 2022. Another 37,000 people, who are already in the United States, were granted
asylum. Both refugees and asylees can apply for a green card. In 2022, about a million people became
United States citizens. Let's do a fact check on authorized immigration, based on the 2022 data. 2
million people came without a path to citizenship, and 500,000 people arrived with a path, add
in people who are granted asylum and you get to 2.6 million new authorized residents.
Group three: unauthorized immigrants. What is an unauthorized immigrant? Some examples:
people who snuck into the country undetected, or snuck into the country but then later asked for
asylum, people who came to custom officials at the border and asked for asylum, people who have come
here from somewhere in turmoil—like Ukraine— and people who have overstayed their temporary visas.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that the total unauthorized population living in the
United States in 2022—the most recent number— is around 11 million people. In 2010 that estimate
was actually higher, 11.6 million people. When our Customs and Border Protection officials intercept
someone coming through an official point of entry, or when they apprehend someone who snuck in
between lawful points of entries, they call that a "border encounter". There were 3.2 million
total border encounters in 2023. Of those, 25 million—or 77%— were at the Southwest border.
Another 392,000 people came through airports, 189,000 people through the northern border with
Canada, and 144,000 people came to our Coastal borders. Right now we're going to focus on the big
number, the 2.5 million people coming through the Southwest border. What exactly happens to
all these people? The first type of border encounter is called inadmissible, and these can
happen only at official ports of entry into the United States. These encounters occurred 430,000
times at the Southwest border in 2023. The second type of encounter occurs between ports of entry
and is called an apprehension, and there were two million of them at the Southwest border
in 2023. Now a very important fact to know: if a person deemed inadmissible at a border
crossing—or apprehended between ports of entry,— asks for asylum, immigration law requires we
give them a hearing. That's because of the 1967 United Nations protocol relating to the status of
refugees and later the Refugee Act of 1980. So, of the 22 million encounters at the Southwest
border in 2023, let's break them down. 1.3 million are permitted to enter the United States
and are lawfully released pending an appearance at Immigration Court, or they are admitted into
the country for humanitarian reasons. Those people will remain in the country—potentially
years— as they wait for their hearing. 765,000 of the individuals encountered at the Southwest
border were repatriated or expelled in 2023. This includes expulsions under Title 42. Title
42 was a program where unauthorized immigrants encountered the border were expelled as quickly
as possible, in the interest of US public health during COVID-19. There were 200,000 expulsions in
2020, 1.1 million in 2021, 1.1 million in 2022, and 600,000 expulsions in the first half of 2023,
before the official end of the public health emergency and Title 42. 311,000 migrants were
transferred to the supervision of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE as it's known,
for further processing. These people might have been detained or released. ICE—on average— has
34,000 people in detention on any given day. 118,000 migrants were unaccompanied minors, who
were transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services for care and custody determination.
That sums up the 2.5 million encounters with unauthorized immigrants that crossed the Southwest
border in 2023. But it doesn't end there. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that
about 600,000 people—in 2023— entered through the Southwest border, without being intercepted by
border patrol officers. Let's step back for a fact check on unauthorized immigration. 2.5 million
encounters with unauthorized immigrants at the Southwest border in 2023, of these encounters 1.3
million people were released into the country, 430,000 more people were transferred to ICE or
Health and Human Services, 765,000 people were repatriated or expelled, plus an estimated 600,000
who entered the country undetected. That means 2.3 million new unauthorized immigrants came over the
Southwest border into the country. We do not know how many unauthorized immigrants may have left
the country in the year. For context, encounter numbers at the Southwest border ranged between
400,000 and 600,000 per year from 2014 to 2018, reaching nearly a million in 2019, after a dip
in 2020—at the height of the pandemic— encounters at the border went up to 1.7 million in 2021,
2.4 million in 2022, and reach the 2.5 million we discussed in 2023. Now I'm going to admit to
being confused! Unauthorized immigrant assessments have been flat for a number of years at 11 million
people, while the number of people coming into the country has increased. But our government needs
to dig in and get all the required numbers to understand that. Since many of the unauthorized
immigrants are seeking asylum, let's start by looking at the asylum system. Looking at asylum
cases in 2022, about 500,000 people apply. While waiting for a court hearing, these migrants can
get work permits from the federal government after their asylum application has been in
process for 180 days. Here's the problem though, this means many unauthorized immigrants have court
cases years in the future. At the end of 2023, there was a backlog of 2.5 million immigration
court cases. A that same year, the courts handed down decisions on 222,000 asylum cases—granting
asylum in just 32,000 of those cases. Now, there are a few other groups who are part of the
unauthorized immigrant population. To start, we hear a lot in the news about Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals—which is known as DACA— under which 545,000 people are living here in the United
States. Another big category is what's called temporary protected status, or TPS. Unauthorized
immigrants living here may seek relief from deportation, if the state department deems their
country unsafe to return to. As of March 2024, 864,000 immigrants were in the United States
under TPS. There are also people overstaying their visas. DHS—Homeland Security— estimated 850,000
people to have overstayed their visas in 2022. However, there's no data on how long these people
actually remain in the US. Finally, let's look at authorized and unauthorized immigration, in the
context of total US population. Today, America has 335 million people, about 46 million of whom
were born outside the United States. This is the third year in a row where immigration has been the
main driver of population growth, which was 1.6 million people in total. Out of that, 1.1 million
came from immigration while only 500,000 came from more people being born than dying, a consequence
of our declining birth rate. 19% of our workforce— almost one in five workers— is foreign-born.
I've learned a lot, I hope you have too. People want to come to America, it's been that way for
hundreds of years. Now it's for you to decide: is our system working? What level of immigration
do we want to have? How should things be changed? The more we know, the better voters we can be.
Just the facts. You decide what you believe.