Texas tops nation population growth due to illegal immigration

Texas has become a hotspot for people to move in the last decade or so. So, it is no surprise that the second largest state has now topped the nation in terms of population growth in the last year. From July 2023 to July 2024, the state saw a jump of 562,000 people, ahead of Florida and California.

But it is not just state-to-state migration that has caused the huge influx. Illegal immigration thanks to Joe Biden's open border has opened the floodgates for not just Mexico natives to move here, but Guatemalans, Venezuelans, Chinese and Iranians.

Bob Price of Breitbart Texas says a lot of our growth has been due to illegal aliens. Between eight and ten million have flooded across the border in the last year, with two-thirds of them coming into Texas alone.

"It is a contributing factor to the increase in population, and the consequential problems we will be having with that," he says.

Every state saw a rise in international immigration during that time period. Texas was actually the third largest, behind Florida and California, with Texas seeing the largest gain from domestic migration.

We have all seen the problems that have come with the open illegal immigration flow. There have been multiple high-profile murder cases, and one even recently set a sleeping woman on a New York subway on fire.

But the problems we have here in Texas are less about the crime aspect, and more of a resources issue.

"There is going to be an increasing demand on water supply, electricity, and natural gas," he says.

Texas has already had issues with Mexico not living up to a water treaty agreement to help with the drought in South Texas. ERCOT's power problems are also well documented and have only gotten worse with the growth.

The state legislature returns to Austin in January with a whole host of topics to discuss.

"There was talk two sessions ago about money to build more reservoirs and to move water around....and it needs to be a priority in this term," says Price.

As for the cities in Texas that saw the most growth, all were located in Central Texas. New Braunfels, Georgetown, and Conroe all saw the biggest jumps from 2023 to 2024.