Hispanics cemented their position as the largest demographic group in Texas with over 12.1 million residents, while the state also had the largest nationwide gains in Asian and Black residents, according to new population estimates from the Census Bureau.
Texas had an estimated population of 30.5 million people as of July 2023, of which 12.1 million were Hispanics of any race, followed by 12 million White non-Hispanics. Over that period, Texas grew by 473,000 people, of which about half (242,000) were new Hispanic residents. Hispanics now account for 39.78% of the state population. White non-Hispanics follow with 39.63%, and Black non-Hispanics with 12.69%.
The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area saw the nation’s largest population growth among Blacks and Asians. From July 2022 to July 2023, the region gained over 44,000 Asian residents, for a total estimated population of 692,000. Collin County had the largest-gaining Asian population, adding about 20,000 people, and Texas added over 91,000 Asian residents, the largest number in the nation, according to Census data.
Texas also added 90,976 new Black residents in 2023, the largest increment of all states, with more than a third of them (37,000) in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area. Texas had the largest Black population in the country, with over 3.8 million.
The U.S. population grew by about 1.64 million to 334.9 million between July 2022 and 2023. Two-thirds of this growth, about 1.16 million people, is attributed to Hispanics of any race and about 500,000 were non-Hispanic. The Census Bureau estimated 65.2 million Hispanics in the U.S., making up 19.5% of the nation’s population. Moreover, this population group is expected to reach 66.9 million by December 2024, and the U.S. population to be 337.2 million by the same period.
“The Hispanic population is expanding at a substantially faster rate than the non-Hispanic population, primarily due to natural increase. That is, more births than deaths,” wrote Census Bureau demographer in a news release.
The Census reported that among Hispanics, there were about 772,000 more births than deaths—the leading force in the net gain. An additional 437,000 Hispanics were added through international migration.
“Texas has an amazing pull for people, factors such as jobs, low cost of living, climate, and great hospitality,” said Mara Queiroz-Vaughn, a Spanish lecturer at The University of North Texas at Dallas and a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Citizenship Ambassador.
Queiroz-Vaughn speaks from experience. At the age of 17 and under a medical visa, she flew from her hometown in Brazil to Dallas to seek treatment for what was diagnosed at the time as terminal leukemia at Baylor’s hospital. Accompanied only by her older sister, Queiroz-Vaughn said they didn’t speak English and struggled with living expenses.
“The Americans that came to my help, most of them were Hispanics,” she recalled. “They treated me like family, specifically Mexicans or Mexican Americans who lived here.”
Queiroz-Vaughn said she learned English from other Hispanics, passed her GED test, and enrolled in college. She overcame cancer and, 30 years later, in 2022, was appointed as a Citizenship Ambassador for USCIS.
According to the Census release, Dallas County was among the five largest counties in the country where the total population increased due to Hispanic population growth. Los Angeles County had the largest Hispanic population, with over 4.6 million in July 2023, followed by Harris County, with 2.1 million. Harris County also had the largest-gaining Hispanic population, adding almost 40,000 residents. Its metro area, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, welcomed over 74,000 Hispanics and had the largest gain in this demographic group in the nation.
To Florencia Velasco, president of The Concilio, an NGO that offers health and education programs to Latino families in North Texas, the fact that natural growth is leading the Hispanic population increase is something they’ve seen in their work with families.
“We actually had a conversation with Parkland Hospital where they mentioned that 80% of the babies born at Parkland are Hispanic,” she said.
Queiroz-Vaughn added that the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area is second in the country, behind Los Angeles, in immigrants seeking to become U.S. citizens. Interested people are coming forward to community colleges, nonprofits such as Catholic Charities, and UNT to take classes so they can be naturalized, she explained.
“I’m a very proud Texan,” Queiroz-Vaughn said, “and I want to make sure that my fellow immigrants here also become citizens.”