Are we overestimating the foreign-born population by nearly two million?

Apparently so, here’s one study from the Chicago Fed, by Kristin Butcher, Lucas Cain, Camilo Garcia-Jimeno, and Ryan Perry:

Standard estimates based on the main domestic survey used to shed light on labor markets – the Current Population Survey (CPS) – suggest that after a sharp decline during the pandemic, recent rapid growth has returned the foreign-born population to, or above, levels predicted by pre-pandemic trends. However, we write that the weighting factors used to make the CPS representative of the country have recently shown unusual movements and conclude that the general estimates of the foreign-born population may be too high at present. We also show that recent labor market indicators are inconsistent with the slowdown caused by the foreign-born.

I also read some privately produced Zonda research, and a book from the US census (not online), basically supporting this conclusion, in the 1.7 to 2.2 million range. So the current number of foreign-born people in the US is nowhere near as unprecedented as some people would have you believe.