Data shows Harris County growth largely due to international immigration
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- Harris County is the third largest in the country, where nearly five million people live.
Recent data by Rice University's Baker Institute shows the numbers are growing mainly for one reason: international immigration.
"What we found was that even though Harris County was the fastest growing county last year, essentially all of that population increase came from international immigration, people moving into Harris County from outside the country," Bill King, with Baker Insitute Rice University, said.
Data shows that nearly 106,000 people moved to Harris County in 2024, and 96% of that was from people who moved in from outside the U.S.
With the area's diversity, they say the county has become a popular place for immigrant families.
"You have a big immigrant community here. So if you're coming in and you know some people, you know that are either relatives or friends of relatives, that got to the same place of worship or that sort of things, it's kind of a natural place to settle," King said.
Eyewitness News also spoke with researchers at the Kinder Institute, which is also affiliated with Rice University.
"In this case, within the Harris County area, domestic migration was negative. So we're going to move that one to the side. That leaves us with births and net international migration," Daniel Potter, with Houston Population Research Center, Kinder Institute, said.
While they agree Harris County's population growth is largely due to people moving here from other countries, the numbers they see are different.
"When you sum those two things together, you get about 166,000 individuals, population change in the Houston area, of that, about 61% was net international migration," Potter said.
The Baker Institute data shows that more than 31,000 people moved out of Harris County last year, mainly to surrounding counties in southeast Texas.
That's a trend they say could impact Harris County in the future.
"Right now, if you stopped immigration, Harris County's growth would come to a screeching halt. We haven't seen that since the 1980s from Harris County. In the 1980s, we had a tremendous crash, and a lot of people left town. But we haven't seen the population go to nothing or lose the population since then," King said.
