The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has analyzed the most recent Census Bureau data, revealing that at least 16.8 million illegal aliens currently reside in the U.S.

According to FAIR, this figure represents a significant increase of 1.3 million since the start of 2022 and a total of 2.3 million since President Biden took office in January 2021.

“The unprecedented rate of influx of new illegal aliens over the past year would add $12.6 billion annually to the costs of illegal immigration, bringing the cumulative net cost to at least $163 billion a year,” according to a press release.

This annual net cost is expected to exceed $200 billion by 2026 if the current pace of illegal immigration continues.

FAIR’s study relies on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) and Current Population Survey (CPS).

However, these sources “traditionally undercount the illegal population by about 30 percent because many illegal aliens are reluctant to respond to the surveys.”

Thus, the actual number of illegal aliens in the U.S. is likely higher than reported.

Furthermore, FAIR’s report asserts, “The increase in the illegal alien population under President Biden is based on a sample that only tracks household addresses on file with the government.”

This count does not include unsheltered illegal migrants and “gotaways” paroled into the U.S. who live under the radar.

FAIR’s analysis also reveals that “these 16.8 million illegal aliens now represent nearly one-third of the foreign-born residents of the United States.”

The report further warns, “The additional $12.6 billion in costs annually is only a down payment. These costs are likely to grow as the migrants become more settled and increase their use of services like public education and health. Moreover, parolees are immediately eligible for a range of welfare benefits.”

FAIR’s analysis suggests that “at the current pace of illegal immigration, more new illegal aliens will have settled in the U.S. in the first three years of the Biden administration than in the entire decade of the 2010s.”

Dan Stein, president of FAIR, expressed concern about the implications of these findings.

“The fiscal and social burdens of the Biden administration’s sabotage of our immigration enforcement policies are unsustainable,” he noted.

Stein also pointed to the “social upheaval” caused by these policies, setting “setting states and against other states, big cities against surrounding communities, overwhelming school districts and social service providers, as economic migrants from all across the globe pour across our borders.”

Stein’s conclusion paints a stark picture of the situation: “The report, ‘How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the United States? 2023 Update,’ provides hard, albeit conservative, numbers that graphically illustrate the magnitude of this self-inflicted crisis.”

You can read the full analysis here: