Katie Porter Faces Backlash for Saying Illegal Immigrants Drive California Population Growth

Former Rep. Katie Porter, a Democratic candidate in California's crowded gubernatorial primary, drew backlash after stating that illegal immigrants are driving population growth in the state, a claim Republicans have long made.

"The job of the California governor is to protect every single Californian," Porter said after a question at Tuesday's California gubernatorial debate about whether she would work with federal authorities to deport illegal immigrants. "The sanctuary state policy is designed to make sure that our state resources, the taxpayer dollars, the public servants that we have, are focusing on doing their jobs, which is not cooperating with the federal immigration authorities."

"These are Californians, they contribute to our economy, they pay taxes, and they're one of the only ways that our state has been growing in recent years," Porter said of illegal immigrants.

Gunther Eagleman, a popular right-wing X account, accused Porter of saying "the quiet part out loud" by stating that illegal immigrants have mitigated population decline in California.

Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have accused Democrats of resisting deportation efforts because it could cost them House seats. Illegal immigrants counted by the Census help determine the total number of House seats a state receives when the chamber is reapportioned every 10 years.

"So she's saying Cali has too many seats in the House?" one X user said in response to Porter's comment.

While Trump and others have tried to add a citizenship question to the Census to exclude non-citizens from House seat calculations, the Constitution does not mention citizenship status in relation to congressional apportionment.

"California is cooked: Katie Porter says criminal illegal aliens are ‘one of the only ways California has been growing in recent years," Republican communications operative Steve Guest wrote on X. "Democrats have been in total control of [California] for the past 16 years."

An estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants entered California from 2021 to 2023, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Between July 2021 and July 2023, California's overall population grew by just under 20,000, per data from the California Department of Finance.

California saw a net population loss of 215,542 from domestic migration in 2025, compared to a net gain of 125,473 from foreign migration that year, according to the state's Department of Finance. Migration out of California has cost the state billions of dollars per year in tax revenue, according to California's Legislative Analyst's Office.

Other critics challenged Porter's assertion that illegal immigrants benefit California's economy. "If you think the best way to promote economic growth involves letting in illegal aliens, you're doing it wrong," Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote.

California's illegal immigrants paid roughly $8.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2022, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Conservative critics argue that illegal immigrants consume more than that in public services like education and subsidized healthcare, though such costs are hard to quantify.

Some studies, including a report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, have found that illegal immigration raises the cost of living by increasing housing demand.