(The Center Square) – In the past year, Illinois saw nearly 113,000 people from other countries move into the state, helping the state grow by nearly 68,000 people.
Vintage 2024 numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau was released Thursday. The U.S. population grew by nearly 1.0% between 2023 and 2024.
“As the nation’s population surpasses 340 million, this is the fastest annual population growth the nation has seen since 2001 – a notable increase from the record low growth rate of 0.2% in 2021,” the Census said in a news release. “The growth was primarily driven by rising net international migration.”
For the first time in a decade, Illinois gained population in the annual estimate.
Thursday’s numbers show Illinois’ population in 2020 was 12.79 million people. The following year, the state was 12.70 million people. In 2022, Illinois continued to shrink with 12.62 million people. But, Thursday’s Census update has the population increasing to 12.42 million in 2023 and up to 12.71 million for 2024.
Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski says some may applaud the state’s increasing population after 10 years of losses, but the numbers paint an ominous picture.
“I would call this the big illegal immigration census count,” Dabrowski said. “You had California, New York and Illinois, three big losers over the last decade, suddenly gain in population and it’s all due to the way they are counting now illegal immigrants.”
International migration was 113,000 for the year in Illinois, offsetting the 56,235 people who left to other states.
“Thank President [Joe] Biden for opening the floodgates at the border,” Dabrowski told The Center Square. “That’s the only reason we grew in population.”
Dabrowski is the son of migrants. He said he supports immigration, but not the kind of open borders from under the previous four years of the Biden administration.
“It’s a tough way to try and replace wealthy or productive citizens from Illinois who move to other states and replace them with lower income and struggling immigrants,” Dabrowski said.
Over the last year, Illinois’ population change ranked at No. 36 of all states. For the past four years, where the state lost more than 111,000 people, the state ranked at No. 48.
