Immigration is fueling the highest growth in the US population in more than two decades

The influx of immigrants to the US by 2024 has caused the population to increase the most in 23 years, as the country's population exceeds 340 million, according to a report on Thursday from the US Census Bureau.

Between 2023 and 2024, the US population will grow by about 1%, the highest increase since 2001. In contrast, the 0.2% growth rate in 2021 was a record low at the height of pandemic restrictions on travel to the US, annual population estimates. the exhibition.

This year, immigration has increased by about 2.8 million people, in part because of a new counting system that adds people admitted for humanitarian reasons.

Net international migration, which the Census Bureau says refers to any change in residence within US borders, was an important part of the change that fueled population growth.

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Total immigration accounted for 84% of the nation's population growth of 3.3 million last year.

The increase reflects a continuing trend in immigration, with a total increase of 1.7 million in 2022 and 2.3 million in 2023.

“The improved integration of federal immigration data sources has improved our estimates approach,” said Christine Hartley, assistant head of the Estimates and Projections division. “With this update, we can better understand how the recent increase in immigration is contributing to population growth across the country.”

Last year, births outnumbered deaths in the US by about 519,000, which was up from a historic low of 146,000 in 2021, but still below the high points of decades past.

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A Haitian immigrant cheers for a humanitarian amnesty as he boards a bus transporting migrants to the US at the Senda de Vida shelter August 30, 2022, in Reynosa, Mexico. (Michael Nigro/Getty Images)

The US Census Bureau did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on the report.

Along with immigration figures, the report showed that the southern region was the fastest growing region in the US by 2024, adding 1.8 million people, more residents than all other regions combined.

Texas saw the largest increase with 562,941 new residents, followed by Florida, which gained 467,347 new residents.

Washington, DC, had the fastest national growth rate at 2.2%.

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Migrants wait in line to enter a shelter set up by immigration authorities as migrants wait to meet with US Customs and Border Protection in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, May 23, 2023. (Christian Torres Chavez/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Other states – Mississippi, Vermont and West Virginia – lost population in 2024, although in smaller amounts ranging from 127 to 516 people.

Those included in the immigration estimates this year are a group of people who entered the US on the parole of the Biden administration, which has been strongly criticized by Republicans.

The Immigration Policy Center based in Washington, DC, reported last week that more than 5.8 million people have been admitted under various humanitarian policies from 2021 to 2024.

But capturing the number of new immigrants is a challenging aspect of US population estimates.

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The bureau's annual estimate of how many immigrants will enter the United States in the 2020s is much lower than numbers reported by other government agencies, such as the Congressional Budget Office. The Census Bureau estimates that 1.1 million immigrants will enter the United States by 2023, while the Congressional Budget Office estimate was 3.3 million people.

In an updated version, last year's immigration figures are now recalculated by the Census Bureau to about 2.3 million people, or another 1.1 million people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.