Driving the Population Growth of Big Counties: Immigrants

Immigrants kept the largest urban counties in the US growing last year, reports the AP:

• Core counties in the Houston, Miami, and Phoenix metropolitan areas grew more than any others in the country primarily because of people moving in from outside the US, according to new population estimates from the Census Bureau.
• Without the international migration, Harris County, Texas; Miami-Dade County, Florida; and Maricopa County, Arizona, would have had nobody moving there last year. That's because more people already living in the country moved out of than into those counties. Miami-Dade County would have lost population without immigrants, since the number of births outpacing deaths wasn't enough to overcome the tens of thousands of residents who moved out.

• Immigration in 2024 drove the overall US population growth to its fastest rate in 23 years as the nation surpassed 340 million residents. The Census Bureau changed how it counted immigrants last year by including more people who were admitted to the US for humanitarian, and often temporary, reasons.
• "A substantial excess of births over deaths has long been the primary driver of US population growth, but as this surplus dwindled in the last four years immigration provided the bulk of the nation's population increase," says demographer Kenneth Johnson of the University of New Hampshire.
• The 2024 estimates reflect a continued dissonance this decade between where current US residents and immigrants choose to live. Immigrants last year moved to the urban cores of metro areas, while those already living in the country preferred counties in the far suburban reaches of metro areas.
• The most popular counties for international migrants last year were Miami-Dade and Harris counties, followed by Los Angeles County and Cook County, Illinois, which is home to Chicago.
• The most popular counties for domestic residents last year were Montgomery County, Texas, north of Houston; Pinal County, Arizona, southwest of Phoenix; and Pasco County, Florida, northeast of Tampa. Also in the top ranks were Polk County, Florida, located between Orlando and Tampa, and Collin County, Texas, in the far northern suburbs of metro Dallas.

(More US Census stories.)