ORLANDO, Fla. — International immigrants flocked to some of the nation's largest urban counties last year, and the influx helped some areas recover from losses for local residents and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. show.
More than 1.1 million people immigrated to the United States last year, driving population growth as immigration became an election issue in races for the White House and Congress. According to the bureau's population estimates, new immigrants from abroad accounted for more than two-thirds of the U.S. population growth last year.
Population estimates released last month show which counties attracted overseas immigrants last year, but do not distinguish between legal and illegal domestic immigrants. More than half of the foreign-born population in the United States lives in just four states: California, Texas, Florida, and New York. But numbers alone tell only part of the story.
Miami-Dade County, Florida, welcomed more than 54,000 people last year, the most of any U.S. county, according to estimates.
Overall, Florida welcomed more than 178,000 international immigrants last year, 15% of the U.S. total. More than 7 in 10 went to the Sunshine State's five most populous and urban counties: Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties in South Florida. Hillsboro on the Gulf Coast is home to Tampa. and Orange in central Florida, where Orlando is located.
A significant number of Florida's international immigrants have cases pending in immigration court, according to numbers tracked by Syracuse University's Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse. Miami and Orlando had two of the largest immigration filings in deportation proceedings last year, and Florida courts are believed to have a high concentration of Cubans and Venezuelans. .
Stephen Layer, director of the Population Program at the University of Florida's Office of Economics and Business Research, said the increase in Florida reflects some of the pent-up international migration that was postponed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stated.
“Some international migrants who arrived in 2022-2023 probably had plans to migrate sooner but were unable to due to pandemic-related travel restrictions,” Layer said in an email.
Detailed numbers on where people will come from in 2023 have not yet been released by the Census Bureau. However, according to 2022 American Community Survey public use microdata, the largest percentage of international immigrants to Florida came from Canada, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil, and Colombia, respectively.
The influx of more than 40,300 people into California's Los Angeles County will make it the third-largest overseas migration in the United States in 2023, with 119,000 people from the nation's most populous county, according to Census Bureau statistics. It helped ease the exodus of 1,000 local residents.
Counties including San Diego, Anaheim, San Jose and Oakland also attracted large numbers of international immigrants, with local residents heading out due to rising housing costs and unemployment rates.
A similar influx of international immigrants and outflow of local residents occurred in New York City's counties, including the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens.
According to 2022 American Community Survey microdata, the largest numbers of international immigrants to California came from Mexico, China, and India, respectively.
The District of Columbia and its surrounding counties demonstrate the attractiveness of urban cores to international immigrants. Two urbanized Maryland counties just outside the district, Montgomery County and Prince George's County, were among the counties in the United States that welcomed the most international immigrants last year. The population of the entire district has also increased year by year.
“This means these areas are getting more attention as some jobs and other activity is moving back to central cities,” William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, said in an email. I think so,” he said in an email. “While many are predicting a post-pandemic doom scenario for urban centers, it is entirely possible that increased immigration will be the ‘silver bullet’ for urban center recovery.”
Suburban counties far from the capital, such as Virginia's Prince William County and Fairfax County, also experienced an influx of international immigrants, but on a smaller scale than in previous years.
Among counties with populations of 500,000 or more, Ada County, Idaho, home to Boise, and Utah, home to Provo and Salt Lake City, are the two counties with the highest growth rates in international migration. In 2023.