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In today’s morning email, the New York Times lays out the basic facts relating to immigration to the U.S. The email is titled: “The largest immigration surge in U.S. history.”

1. The immigration surge since 2021 has been the largest in U.S. history, surpassing even the levels of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Total net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — will likely exceed eight million people over the past four years, government statistics suggest. That number includes both legal and illegal immigration.

Never before has annual net migration been close to two million for an extended period, according to data from the Census Bureau and the Congressional Budget Office.

That is true even as a percentage of population.

2. Even after adjusting for today’s larger population, the surge is slightly larger than that during the peak years of Ellis Island traffic, when millions of Europeans came to the United States. This chart tells that story:

3. The share of the U.S. population born in another country has reached a record high as a result.

The Times includes a chart that displays this nicely. But this is the real kicker:

4. President Biden’s welcoming immigration policy has been the main reason for the recent surge. During his 2020 campaign, Biden encouraged more people to come to the U.S., and he loosened several policies after taking office.

Biden administration officials sometimes argue that outside events, such as the turmoil in Haiti, Ukraine and Venezuela, have been the main cause of the surge, and those events did play a role. But the sharp decline of migration levels since this past summer — when Biden tightened the rules — indicates that the administration’s policies were the biggest factor:

Another chart shows this clearly. And–a key point!–the recent immigration surge is primarily illegal:

5. More than half of net migration since 2021 has been among people who entered the country illegally. Of the roughly eight million net migrants who came to the U.S. over the past four years, about five million — or 62 percent — were unauthorized, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs.

I am pretty sure that estimate is low, but it is plenty high enough.

6. The unprecedented scale of recent immigration helps explain why the issue played such a big role in the 2024 election. Polls showed that the sharp rise in immigration was unpopular with most Americans, especially among working-class voters, some of whom complained of strained social services, crowded schools and increased homelessness. …

And finally, some good news:

7. The recent immigration surge has probably ended. Trump has promised to impose even tougher border rules…

Even tougher!

…next year than Biden recently imposed. Trump also campaigned on a plan to deport millions of immigrants who entered the country illegally.

And finally, this:

Historically, in both the U.S. and other countries, very high levels of immigration often cause a political backlash that leads to new restrictions.

It would be interesting to search the Times archives to find out whether the paper published any such frank discussion of the immigration issue prior to the election.