U.S. Immigrant Population Hit Record High Last Year

The immigrant population in the U.S. hit a record high last year as the number of both legal and illegal immigrants ramped up.

The number of U.S. residents born in another country rose by close to one million last year, reaching a record 46.2 million people, according to new U.S. Census estimates.

Immigrants are now nearly 14% of the total U.S. population, the Census data shows.

One driver of the increase is more legal immigration through visas and taking in refugees, much of which was put on hold during the pandemic. The Biden administration has accepted tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan, where the Taliban regained control in 2021, and Ukraine, which is at war with Russia.

At the same time, the administration has struggled to address millions of illegal migrants flooding over the nation’s southern border over the last year.

“It’s worth pointing out that these data relate to the middle of 2022, which is before a lot of the recent surges, but some of the people who came in through the southern border are included here as well, so it’s a combination of all of these factors,” Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Research Center, told The Daily Wire.

The U.S. is seeing an increase of people coming from particular countries south of the border, including Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, and Honduras, Passel said.

Meanwhile, the largest immigrant population in the U.S. came from Mexico, with almost 11 million immigrants, but the number of Mexican immigrants is decreasing, Passel said, and the number of El Salvadoran immigrants coming in has remained about the same for five years.

The U.S. is also seeing “significant growth” in immigrants from Africa and Asia, including China, Passel said, as well as a “large increase” in Afghan immigrants. Afghan immigrants were less than 200,000 last year but still double the number they were five years ago, he said.

Some states have seen more new immigrants settle within their borders than others.

Florida took in 200,000 immigrants last year, the biggest increase by far of any state, according to the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey.

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Other states that experienced significant increases in new immigrants were Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Iowa.

Several major U.S. cities are currently scrambling to address a migrant crisis precipitated by thousands of new illegal migrants crossing the border and showing up in need of food and shelter.

In New York City, more than 110,000 migrants have arrived since last year, and 60,000 are still being housed on the city’s dime, causing officials to open additional homeless shelters.

Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, announced city-wide budget cuts to deal with the issue and warned earlier this month that the migrant crisis will “destroy” New York City.

Chicago is dealing with a similar crisis as the mayor pushes for dozens of huge tent structures that could house 200 migrants each.

Critics have warned that an insecure border is a serious national security threat since it can allow foreign nationals with unknown intentions and even terrorists to bypass border agents undetected.

Bill Maher’s Show Will Return Despite Ongoing Strike

Comedian Bill Maher announced on Wednesday that, despite the ongoing Hollywood strikes involving both the actors’ and writers’ unions, his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher” would be returning the air.

Maher made the announcement in a post on X, saying that he intended to honor the ongoing strikes in every way that he could — but that bringing his show back was the best way to put as many people as he could back to work.

Real Time is coming back, unfortunately, sans writers or writing. It has been five months, and it is time to bring people back to work. The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and hope they are addressed to their satisfaction, but they are not the only people…

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) September 14, 2023

“‘Real Time’ is coming back, unfortunately, sans writers or writing. It has been five months, and it is time to bring people back to work,” Maher began. “The writers have important issues that I sympathize with, and hope they are addressed to their satisfaction, but they are not the only people with issues, problems, and concerns.”

Maher went on to say that although he had stepped in to help his staffers, many were still having a rough go of things after being out of work for such a long time.

“Despite some assistance from me, much of the staff is struggling mightily. We all were hopeful this would come to an end after Labor Day, but that day has come and gone, and there still seems to be nothing happening,” Maher continued. “I love my writers, I am one of them, but I’m not prepared to lose an entire year and see so many below-the-line people suffer so much.”

Maher concluded by explaining that he intended to drop some of the scripted portions of the show in an effort to stand with the writers who continued to strike — and he conceded that, without his regular writers, the show would not likely be as good as it had been in the past.

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“I will honor the spirit of the strike by not doing a monologue, desk piece, New Rules or editorial, the written pieces that I am so proud of on Real Time. And I’ll say it upfront to the audience: the show I will be doing without my writers will not be as good as our normal show, full stop,” he said. “But the heart of the show is an off-the-cuff panel discussion that aims to cut through the bullshit and predictable partisanship, and that will continue. The show will not disappoint.”

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