An unprecedented surge in border crossings over the past decade reshaped America: Millions of people from more than 150 countries arrived, bringing the U.S. immigrant population to its highest levels ever.
Now, data obtained exclusively by The Associated Press paints a picture of who these migrants are, where they went, and what happened after the border.
Some went to cities that have long been magnets for immigrants — New York, Miami — but increasingly, others found their way to smaller cities with less developed immigrant footholds. Blocks, neighborhoods and entire cities were remade in places like Elkhart, Indiana; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Dodge City, Kansas.
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And while the vast majority of migrants traditionally were from Mexico, this surge saw people from an astonishing number and diversity of countries: India, Ecuador, Ghana.
Via a Freedom of Information Act request, AP obtained federal records on the self-reported destinations of 4.5 million migrants released in the United States after crossing the Mexican border — both legally and illegally — between October 2018 and July 2025.
Migrants must provide U.S. Customs and Border Protection with a street address. AP obtained their destination ZIP codes, citizenship by country, ages, genders, and the dates and border regions where they encountered authorities.
Some probably never arrived at the addresses they gave. Authorities lacked resources to check, though migrants must report truthfully to pursue their cases in court and get work permits. Some have moved elsewhere in the United States or left the countr y, voluntarily or involuntarily. But many have stayed put.
Data on their initial destinations after the southern border provides both a sweeping and an unusually granular look at how the immigration surge — one that peaked during President Joe Biden's administration and was a major reason voters returned his predecessor, Donald Trump, to the White House — is playing out today.
Here are some key takeaways from the data.
Florida remained No. 1, but many people looked elsewhere
While Florida was the most popular state overall, Latin American immigrants increasingly looked elsewhere for more promising job prospects and better quality of life. Many turned to places with small but established communities of immigrants from their homelands.
For Cubans, nine of the top 10 destination ZIP codes were in Florida, but people of the Caribbean nation also flocked to Louisville, Kentucky; Grand Island, Nebraska; and Odessa, Texas.
Colombians went to the Denver suburb of Aurora. Paterson, New Jersey, was the top pick among Peruvians.
One million Venezuelans were released into the United States after crossing the Mexican border, and many shunned Miami and other longtime immigrant footholds for smaller places with less established communities.
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These cities and towns promised better jobs, cheaper homes, less traffic and higher quality of life, outweighing Florida’s allure of tropical weather and ease of getting by on Spanish alone.
Utah — known as a relatively immigrant-friendly state despite deep Republican roots and support for Trump — became a top destination for Venezuelans, along with parts of the Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, Dallas and Houston metro areas. They also went to smaller cities including Madison, Wisconsin; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Savannah, Georgia.
Enrique Vera, 32, crossed the border in Yuma, Arizona, in 2021 and went to Miami to settle with his mother, who'd been there six years. But he found Florida untenable, he told AP — “the work, the conditions, the low pay.”
After less than two weeks there, Vera and his mother accepted a cousin’s invitation to Utah. In the southern suburbs, with massive new housing tracts and pristine shopping centers, Vera found factory work but soon quit to turn a hobby baking for co-workers into his own business. Today he employs 15 people — many, like him, asylum seekers — at a warehouse and two bakeries.
Philly, Cincinnati and others drew from many continents
The Border Patrol encountered migrants from 174 countries in one year alone, a sharp departure from earlier periods when they were nearly all Mexican and Central American.
The growth of social media and new migration routes was key in bringing people from around the world. Cincinnati, for example, saw a large number of arrivals from West Africa, Uzbekistan and India.
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Some cities — ones that for generations have had robust international communities — were further diversified by the range of countries from which people arrived.
New York City’s Queens borough registered at least 25 nationalities with significant arrivals, including five countries that each sent more than 7,000 people: Ecuador, China, Colombia, Venezuela and India.
Philadelphia had 11 nationalities with at least 1,000 new arrivals, led by Brazil, Haiti and the Dominican Republic but also including Russia and Venezuela. The city’s metro area also saw more than 1,000 migrants from Georgia.
More women and children than men came to the U.S.
Nearly six of every 10 migrants released at the border were women and children, a dramatic shift from a few years earlier when migrants were predominantly men.
The change is visible in many places and across nationalities, but some stand out. Tulsa, Oklahoma, attracted Mexican women and children. Ecuadorian women and children went to Spring Valley, New York. Guatemalan women were drawn to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Those from China headed primarily to two places
Chinese migrants, who trekked by hundreds nightly in California's mountainous border with Mexico, largely gravitated to two places: New York City, especially the Queens and Brooklyn boroughs, and a cluster of neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.
Deportation hit some migrant magnets and overlooked others
Immigration arrests have hit some areas that ranked among the most popular destinations for migrants in recent years, including Miami and New York.
Others that saw a large migrant influx have gotten less attention from authorities, including California’s Silicon Valley; Madison, Wisconsin; and Stamford, Connecticut.
Many here are still waiting on their asylum cases
Some asylum seekers were told to wait 10 years for an initial appointment in 2023, but the government has moved aggressively to winnow the backlog. Still, about 500,000 Venezuelans have pending cases in immigration court, more than any other nationality.
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Loreana Pachano, who spent much of her childhood in Miami, has been waiting 10 years for an asylum interview. She was increasingly impatient but now wonders whether she might do better if her case remains open until after Trump leaves office.
She and her husband settled in Florida but tired of long commutes and anti-Venezuelan sentiment. They moved to Utah after a friend told her that construction wages were significantly higher. “If we had to start from scratch, how about we start from scratch somewhere else?” she remembers thinking.
Now a real estate agent, she sells houses to asylum seekers who crossed the border and has seen the impact of Trump’s policies — for example, a bank closing on a house that a Venezuelan client gave up because she lost work authorization when Trump ended Temporary Protected Status for more than 600,000 Venezuelans.
“It feels like we’re building on quicksand. We’re trying to build a future here for ourselves, for our kids,” said Pachano, who flips homes and owns trucking and construction businesses with her husband while raising their 3- and 7-year-old daughters.
“Are we going to be here by the time we reach retirement age? We don’t know. You don’t know when the rug is going to be pulled right under your feet.”
