New data shows that the number of immigrants lacking permanent legal status in the U.S. “is much lower than the Trump administration claims,” and “talk of an invasion is overblown,” said J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy and communications at the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

Appleby, who served as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ director of migration policy and public affairs from 1998-2016, shared his thoughts in an email to OSV News about a recently released journal article by his CMS colleague Robert Warren.

Research by Warren, published in the Journal on Migration and Human Security, found that the total number of what he called the “undocumented population” in the U.S. reached 12.2 million in 2023.

That number is far lower than the 15 million to 20 mi

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