Study: Foreign-born Muslim population in U.S. doubled since 9/11

An analysis published by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Sept. 10 warned that the U.S. did not take proper precautions following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. As a result, the foreign-born population in the U.S. from Muslim majority countries roughly doubled over the past 25 years.

Reviewing data from the U.S. Census Bureau, CIS research director Steven Camarota and demographer Karen Ziegler found that the foreign-born population from Muslim countries rose from 1,697,452 in 2001 to nearly 3.5 million by 2024, a 103% increase.

The native-born U.S. population, on the other hand, increased by only 15% over the same time period while the foreign-born population overall only increased by 58%.

The CIS research team noted that the increase represented is the net increase, meaning “new arrivals minus emigration and natural mortality.” The real number of foreign nationals from Muslim majority countries who entered the U.S. following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was actually higher.

In the 25 years since the Sept. 11 attacks, many Americans “may wonder if increased vetting or possible distrust of Muslims in the United States caused fewer people from the Islamic world to immigrate here,” Camarota and Ziegler wrote.

The data, they concluded, suggest “that the U.S. did not fundamentally change immigration policy after September 11th, nor does the desire of many people in the Muslim world to settle here seem to have changed much. As a result, the number of immigrants from these countries has soared.”

Foreign nationals from Afghanistan (476%) and Yemen (416%) saw the largest increases percentage-wise, while foreign nationals from Pakistan (200,868), Afghanistan (201,934), and Bangladesh (263,722) saw the largest increases in sheer numbers.

Furthermore, the CIS analysis found at least 1.9 million U.S.-born children of foreign nationals from Muslim majority countries. The total number of foreign nationals from Muslim majority countries plus their U.S.-born children stood at 5.4 million in 2024, compared with 2.5 million in 2001, representing a 118% increase.

“Assuming that recent trends continue, the number of immigrants from majority-Muslim countries and their U.S.-born offspring will nearly double to 10.4 million by 2050,” Camarota and Ziegler warned.

Previous studies have suggested that the share of illegal aliens from Muslim majority countries is lower than the overall share of illegal aliens from foreign countries, which the CIS analysts said denotes that the “rapid increase in immigrants from the Islamic world overwhelmingly reflects legal immigration policies.”

Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told Zeale News that many of the security and vetting systems needed prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks are still needed today.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the head of propaganda for Al Qaeda and the “principal architect” of the attacks on the World Trade Center, told the Central Intelligence Agency “that America would be beaten by immigration and its own liberties, not another airliner,” Ries recalled.

“We are witnessing that play out in the U.S., the UK, France, and other Western European countries. The same tactics, at the same time,” she said. “To save our Republic, we need to halt and reverse this trend in the U.S.”

Ries recommended completing the Biometric Exit Program, a tool of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in order to identify foreign nationals who have departed the U.S. and track those who have overstayed visas, in addition to “being much stricter” regarding both the number of foreign nationals allowed to study at U.S. universities and the nations those foreign nationals can come from.

The U.S. should also not resettle foreign nationals claiming asylum or refugee status if their home countries are adversaries of or hostile to the U.S., Ries suggested. 

“If they have a legitimate fear of persecution, they should be resettled in their own region,” she said. “Those aliens from such countries who have been resettled here should be vetted again. Any who are not well disposed to the good order and happiness of the U.S. should lose their U.S. immigration benefit.”