Social media users started inflating the number of non-citizens residing in the United States by tens of millions after the Trump administration revealed on Thursday that it is reviewing the valid visas of over 55 million people.
According to Posts, around a quarter to a third of the population in the United States is not an American citizen, given the 55 million visa holders and the roughly 25 million or more people who are illegally there. There are roughly 342 million people living in the United States.
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Government data, however, disputes these numbers, and experts claim that the estimations that are circulating online are greatly exaggerated.
Let’s examine the facts in more detail.
CLAIM: Between 70 million and 100 million Americans do not hold U.S. citizenship.
The facts show that this is untrue. According to the most recent Census Bureau data, there were around 22 million noncitizens living in the United States in 2023. This covers both legitimate and unauthorized visitors to the nation.
Since not all visa holders live in the United States, the 55 million visas—including tourist visas—do not accurately reflect the number of Americans. According to a recent Pew Research Center research, there are around 14 million people living in the United States illegally. Trump frequently exaggerates the number of illegal immigrants in the US, claiming that most of them arrived under the Biden administration. Most recently, he claimed that there were 25 to 30 million of them.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior scholar at the American Immigration Council, stated that the 55 million statistic refers to all visa holders globally, not just those who are presently in the country. Additionally, the 25 million undocumented immigration statistic is wholly untrue.
However, many social media users cited these numbers to exaggerate the number of noncitizens residing in the United States.
According to one X post, there are 55 million people with visas and tens of millions of illegal immigrants—nearly 100 million of them are foreign nationals. Foreigners make up nearly one-third of the population. Totally crazy when you think about it. America has no duty or justification to put up with this. America will vanish as a nation if it doesn’t deport the tens of millions of people it must.
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 3.6 million individuals, including diplomats, exchange visits, students, and temporary laborers, were living in the United States on temporary visas in 2024. Those with tourist visas are not included in this. There were 12.8 million more green card holders.
Tens of millions of people with tourist visas, which can last up to 10 years depending on one’s country, are among the 55 million individuals holding U.S. visas, according to experts. Last year, the State Department issued about 6.5 million tourist visas.
According to Michelle Mittelstadt, a spokesman for the Migration Policy Institute, “I don’t think anyone would consider a tourist who comes to the U.S. for a week or two a U.S. resident.”
According to a Pew Research Center analysis published Thursday, 14 million individuals were predicted to be illegally present in the United States in 2023. Similar numbers are cited in other recent estimations. As of July, the figure was 14.2 million, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for immigration restrictions. As of mid-2023, the Center for Migration Studies projected a lower projection of 12.2 million.
