By Annette Choi, CNN

(CNN) — The undocumented immigrant population in the US reached a record 14 million in 2023, a 19% increase from the year before, according to new estimates from the Pew Research Center.

The rise was driven by immigrants who were granted protection from deportation under the Biden administration — such as asylum seekers or those released at the border by US Customs and Border Protection with orders to appear in immigration court, according to Pew. This group with deportation protections accounted for more than 40% of the total undocumented population in 2023.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has doubled down on his hardline immigration agenda, mobilizing law enforcement to conduct sweeping deportation raids. Although complete data is not yet available, Pew estimates that the undocumented population has likely dropped off in 2025 as a result.

Pew? said it uses the labels “unauthorized” and “undocumented” to capture a range of statuses, including many immigrants who entered the United States legally, and it groups together immigrants living with impermanent statuses.

Of the 6 million undocumented immigrants with deportation protections, about 2.6 million people were asylum applicants and 1 million people were migrants who had been released by US Customs and Border Protection, typically with orders to appear in immigration court, Pew found. About 700,000 were migrants who entered the US legally and were paroled into the country.

“A lot of those people had humanitarian claims that might lead them to being granted asylum in the US,” said Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at Pew Research Center. “That they were fleeing persecution of various kinds in their home country.”

Deportation protections are often temporary, however, and subject to change. The new Trump administration has since suspended protections for immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and targeted asylum seekers who have been working legally in the United States.

The new 14 million figure is a significant increase from widely cited estimates released by Pew demographers in recent years. The organization’s estimates are frequently used by lawmakers and immigration policy experts.

Overall, unauthorized immigrants represented 4.1% of the US population in 2023, a one percentage point increase from 2021, according to Pew. The majority of the undocumented population continued to be made up of immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed a visa.

Six states — California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois — were home to more than half of all unauthorized immigrants in the country that year.

The 2023 data also shows there was an uptick in US undocumented immigrants from around the world, including Asia, Europe and Canada. The most significant increases were among undocumented immigrants from South and Central American countries, according to Pew.

For example, there were about 455,000 more unauthorized immigrants from Venezuela and nearly 400,000 more from Cuba in 2023 than there were in 2021.

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—CNN’s Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report.