How many immigrants in the US illegally live in Minnesota vs. Florida or Texas? Breaking down the data

After the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched a sweeping immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota in December 2025, rumors spread on social media about the Democratic state’s allegedly small population of immigrants living in the country illegally compared to other states. 

Posts online claimed 130,000 people without legal immigration status lived in Minnesota, as opposed to 2.1 million in Texas and 1.6 million in Florida. These statistics, which Snopes readers asked us to verify, spread on Facebook, Reddit and Threads. 

Some social media users emphasized that Texas and Florida historically vote Republican in presidential elections, as opposed to Minnesota, which leans Democratic, appearing to imply that President Donald Trump’s Republican administration was targeting political opponents with immigration enforcement. 

Exact totals for the number of people who live in the U.S. illegally are nearly impossible to obtain. The population has major incentives to not answer questions about their situation truthfully or at all. Demographers rely on the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), a survey of residents, for the best possible estimations.

The tallies in the social media posts (2.1 million people in Texas, 1.6 million in Florida and 130,000 in Minnesota) came from 2023 data released in 2025 by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, as several posts accurately noted. Pew has published estimates of the “U.S. unauthorized immigrant population” for more than two decades, relying on the ACS to do so. The 2023 totals were the most recent available as of this writing. 

In other words, the data came from a reputable source but did not necessarily represent population estimates in 2026. Those numbers would not be available for several years, as they rely on the ACS, which takes time to tabulate. Thus, we have rated this claim mostly true. 

By email, Snopes asked DHS for updated and detailed state-by-state population estimates, as well as questions about why it was targeting Minnesota for immigration enforcement in January 2026. 

The department did not address those inquiries and responded with a list of people the agency said it has apprehended in Minnesota on suspicion of violent crimes. The agency also sent a link to an X post by Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem that blamed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, for refusing “to protect their own people and instead protect criminals.” 

Under former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, DHS acknowledged both Pew Research and another nonpartisan research organization, the Center for Migration Studies, as reputable sources for the estimated number of immigrants living the U.S. without legal status, as evidenced in an April 2024 report (see Page 10).

All three sources (DHS, Pew Research and the Center for Migration Studies) use the ACS to calculate estimates. They have similar, but not identical, estimates due to “key differences in methodological details,” such as how they adjust for census undercounting, according to Page 10 of DHS’ 2024 report. That doesn’t mean any of the sources are more accurate than the others — just that each institution uses different techniques to estimate the population size.

Pew Research data

The numbers in the social media posts stemmed from a Pew report that published on Aug. 21, 2025. The report included a table showing “unauthorized immigrants and characteristics for states, 2023.” 

That table indicated Minnesota’s population of immigrants in the country illegally was about 130,000, or 2.2% of the total population; Florida’s was 1.6 million people, or 6.9% of the population, and Texas’ was 2.05 million people, or 6.6% of the total population. 

Pew rounded the population totals, but did not round numbers for the population percentages. In the published report, Pew also rounded its estimate for Texas to 2.1 million, which may explain where the social media posts got that number. 

Here’s the research center’s map showing the estimations:

(Pew Research Center)

Other sources

DHS publishes partial estimates on what it calls the country’s “unauthorized immigrant population” by state. 

As of this writing, the most recent DHS report was published on April 18, 2024, depicting data between 2018 and 2022. That report includes state-by-state population statistics for only 10 states — places in the country where the most people without legal immigration status reside. 

As such, DHS published numbers for Texas and Florida, which ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, but not Minnesota. (The state with the largest population of people in the country illegally is California, according to the report.) 

According to DHS’ report, in 2022, Texas had an estimated 2.06 million immigrants living in the country illegally and Florida had 590,000 (see Page 5). 

Pew’s report indicated that Florida’s population has had the biggest growth, adding an estimated 700,000 immigrants without legal status between 2021 and 2023, which may explain the discrepancy between DHS’ estimate for 2022 (590,000) and Pew’s estimate for 2023 (1.6 million).

The other organization DHS mentioned in its report, the Center for Migration Studies, has published a map showing estimates of the populations by state, using data from 2023. That map showed an estimated 104,900 immigrants living in the U.S. illegally in Minnesota, 1.025 million in Florida and a little over 2.05 million in Texas.