How many people are actually undocumented in the U.S.?

The Pew Research Center estimates the undocumented population in the U.S. has grown substantially since 2021.

A new study from the Pew Research Center released Thursday shows that the number of unauthorized immigrants — the organization’s terminology for undocumented people — reached an all-time high of 14 million people in 2023. That’s up 3.5 million from 2021, which marks the largest two-year jump the center has recorded.

Pew has sub-categorized unauthorized immigrants in two groups: those with deportation protections and those without.

“There are some people who enter the country without authorization and have remained in that status since,” the director of race and ethnicity research at Pew, Mark Hugo Lopez , told The Times. “There are others who may have come to the U.S. legall