Does someone have to be an American citizen to live in the US? Not necessarily; millions of noncitizens live here legally as permanent residents, visa holders, and refugees.
According to the latest available data, an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States as of 2022 — roughly the population of Georgia in 2025.
11M
5%
How are millions of noncitizens living in the US without legal status?
Some entered the country on temporary visas but overstayed them. Others entered without being officially admitted. Some are in the middle immigration court proceedings, and others have temporary protection like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
What is an unauthorized immigrant?
An unauthorized immigrant is a noncitizen who doesn’t have lawful permanent resident status and or a valid visa (permanent or temporary) to remain in the United States.
This generally includes:
- People who entered without inspection at an official port of entry.
- People with temporary protections (like Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) or who have pending immigration proceedings (like waiting for a decision on an asylum application) and are waiting to obtain lawful permanent status.
- People who have overstayed a temporary visa or have violated the terms of their admission.
Entering without inspection
Some individuals enter the United States without inspection, meaning they cross the border between official ports of entry and are not formally admitted by immigration authorities.
Since these people aren’t formally admitted, there’s no direct way to count how many people successfully enter this way. Estimates rely on modeling; border encounter data, including apprehensions reported by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is one way to measure of enforcement activity but doesn’t capture the total number of people who enter the US without being detected.
The number of apprehensions has decreased recently: From February 2025 to January 2026, there were an average of 8,774 apprehensions per month, down from a recent peak of 251,178 apprehensions in December 2023.
There have been an average of 8,774 monthly border apprehensions since February 2025.
Nationwide apprehensions, October 2023–January 2026
Although the exact rates fluctuate, the bulk of apprehensions typically happen at the southern border — they’ve been between over 70%, and as much as 99%, of all border apprehensions since October 2023. For this reason, trends at the southern border are sometimes used as an indicator of changes in border activity, even though they don’t measure the number of people entering informally.
In 2025, apprehensions at the US-Mexico border reached the lowest level recorded in available data.
Apprehensions at the US-Mexico border were down 86% between December 2024 to December 2025.
Apprehensions by Border Patrol between official ports of entry at the US-Mexico border, January 2000–December 2025
Noncitizens who enter without authorization may be subject to arrest, detention, and removal proceedings.
Pending immigration proceedings
Some unauthorized immigrants are in the US awaiting the resolution of an immigration proceeding, typically related to asylum applications.
People arriving at a port of entry can claim asylum, which gives them permission to remain in the US, because they’re seeking protection from persecution in their home country related to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a social group. (This isn’t the same as a refugee: an asylee is someone on US soil, while refugees is someone who isn’t yet in the country).
Asylum claims can be affirmative, meaning the person proactively applies upon arrival, or defensive, meaning the person applies for asylum as a mechanism to keep from being deported.
Total asylum cases increased by a factor of 10 from FY 2015 to FY 2024, going from 83,502 to 874,106. In FY 2025, 95.3% of asylum applications were defensive.
In FY 2025, defensive asylum cases were 95% of all new asylum cases.
New asylum cases by type, FY 2016–2025
Temporary protections
Some noncitizens are unauthorized but are allowed to remain in the US because they meet the requirements of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
If the State Department determines that a person’s home country isn’t safe to return to, that individual is granted TPS and is safe from deportation. As of March 2025, nearly 1.3 million people in the US had Temporary Protected Status.
The State Department maintains a list of countries considered unsafe for return; the list is regularly reviewed and updated by each administration based on changing conditions in those countries.
DACA protects minors from deportation. If the child is meets the eligibility conditions — which include entering the US as a minor, continuously residing here, and being in school — their deportation is deferred, though they have to renew their status each year. In June 2025, there were 515,570 active DACA recipients. That number has been gradually declining since May 2018, when it peaked at 702,250 .
DACA is not a path to citizenship, and the agency that administers it, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, has been blocked by court proceedings from processing new requests since September 13, 2023 (although they still accept them).
The number of people with active DACA status in June 2025 is 26.6% below the May 2018 peak.
Active DACA recipients, September 2017–June 2025
Overstaying a visa
Some people enter the US legally with temporary visas that allow them to be in the country for a limited time, but then stay beyond the term of their visa. (Temporary visas, or nonimmigrant visas, are granted for reasons like tourism, short-term work, business, medical treatment, and education.) When a visa expires, the visa holder must either renew it (if they’re eligible) or leave the country. If the person doesn’t renew or leave, they have transitioned from lawful entry to unauthorized presence.
In fiscal year 2024, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that 1.15% of all nonimmigrant visa holders stayed in the US past their visa expiration dates. That amounted to 538,548 people, or a little more than the population of Sacramento, California.
Where does this data come from?
Where does this data come from?
Department of Homeland Security:
The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for protecting the United States from threats through activities such as counterterrorism, border and immigration enforcement, cybersecurity, and disaster prevention and response. Their report, “Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States,” provides estimates of the noncitizen population. It was last updated on April 18, 2024, with data from January 2018–January 2022. The publication of this report varies: sometimes, it is updated yearly, and other times, it is not unusual for there to be a multi-year gap (typically not exceeding four years).
Customs and Border Protection:
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is a subagency of the Department of Homeland Security. CBP is responsible for keeping US borders secure and facilitating lawful trade by enforcing immigration laws and preventing illegal entry. CBP’s “Nationwide Encounters” dataset includes encounter data from the northern border, the southern border, and other encounters by air, land, and sea. Data are usually released monthly for the previous month. When new data is released, it’s possible that data from other recent previous months may be slightly modified to include the most up-to-date data.
Department of Justice:
The Department of Justice is responsible for enforcing federal laws and ensuring public safety through prosecuting cases, overseeing federal law enforcement, managing federal prisons, upholding civil rights, and administering justice-related grants. Their report, “Total Asylum Applications,” updated quarterly, and reports on the number of affirmative, defensive, and other asylum cases filed each quarter of the federal fiscal year.
Citizenship and Immigration Services:
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is a subagency of the Department of Homeland Security. USCIS is responsible for overseeing lawful immigration to the United States by administering the immigration and naturalization system, and processing citizenship and immigration benefit applications. Their “Active DACA Recipients” reports on demographics of DACA recipients, including age, sex, state, country of birth, and marital status. It was last updated at the end of the third quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, on June 30, 2025.
Keep exploring
Methodology
USAFacts standardizes data, in areas such as time and demographics, to make it easier to understand and compare.
Page sources
USAFacts endeavors to share the most up-to-date information available. We sourced the data on this page directly from government agencies; however, the intervals at which agencies publish updated data vary.
