Migration Policy Institute

When people are displaced, the structures of everyday life are disrupted. Existing gender roles and responsibilities often both become more intense and shape how individuals respond to their new circumstances. Amid climate change, one domain in which these shifts manifest is in securing and preparing food.

Immigration has been a flashpoint in the 2024 U.S. elections in ways unseen in decades, driven by record levels of encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border and divisive politics. Where there once was a broad consensus across political affiliations that immigration overall was a positive force for the United States, today that sentiment no longer holds for significant swaths of the American public.

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For the just-ended 2024 fiscal year, the Biden administration turned the tide at the U.S.-Mexico border after two years of record levels of irregular crossings, by deepening its carrot-and-stick approach alongside increased immigration enforcement throughout the Western Hemisphere, especially from Mexico.

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Immigrants in the United States commit crimes at lower rates than the U.S.-born population, notwithstanding the assertion by critics that immigration is linked to higher rates of criminal activity. This reality of reduced criminality, which holds across immigrant groups including unauthorized immigrants, has been demonstrated through research as well as findings for the one state in the United States—Texas—that tracks criminal arrests and convictions by immigration status.

A growing body of evidence links climate events such as sea-level rise or droughts to migration—both within and across borders. As climate change amplifies the risks and severity of disasters, policymakers should better understand their options for managing how environmental change interacts with mobility.

Other than refugees, noncitizens living in the United States face significant restrictions on access to public benefits funded by the federal government, including programs such as Medicaid, food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), and cash assistance programs such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

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With immigration a central focus in the public and policy conversations in the United States, it is important to have a solid understanding of the immigrant population. This explainer offers statistics on the immigrant population’s size, origins, places of U.S. settlement, and pathways of arrival. It also looks at legal statuses, as this has been a topic of significant public interest and confusion.