Features
Shindico celebrating 50th anniversary this year – the Sandy Shindleman story
By BERNIE BELLAN Anyone who has ever driven through Winnipeg is bound to have noted the very many buildings – including strip malls, shopping centres, office buildings, and apartment buildings, that bear the name “Shindico”.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Shindico. While its name may be familiar to most Winnipeggers, there’s not a lot that’s been written about how Shindico came to be.
Recently I had the chance to speak with Shindico founder Sandy Shindleman who, now 68, started Shindico when he was only 18.
Anyone who knows Sandy is familiar with his wry wit – and often self-deprecating style. In many ways his story is similar to the stories of many other self-made entrepreneurs within Winnipeg’s Jewish community.
Born in a small town – in this case Portage la Prairie, Sandy was one of three brothers, (the others being Robert and Daniel). The brothers’ parents, Eddie and Claire (née Abells), are both deceased, Eddie having died in 1998, while Claire died in 2019. Eddie’s brother Jack, who worked with Eddie in the grocery store that Eddie owned in Portage (known as Greenberg’s Grocery), passed away in 2020.
Eddie Shindleman’s own father came to Canada in 1912 – from Ukraine (which was then part of Russia, Sandy reminded me.) Claire’s parents were from Belarus. Like many other Jewish immigrants, Sandy’s grandfather went into the cattle business – which Eddie Shindleman remained very much involved in, operating an abattoir (slaughterhouse) in Portage for many years.
Sandy recalls his years growing up in Portage with fondness. There were about “25-35 Jewish families in Portage,” he recalls, many of whom had arrived there after World War II.
The grocery store that his father ran was actually purchased from Eddie Shindleman’s brother-in-law in 1967. Prior to that Eddie had managed the store. As well, Claire and her brother owned a motel in Portage, the “Westgate Inn,” which remained owned by the Shindleman family until this month.
I asked Sandy about the spelling of the name “Shindleman.”
Shouldn’t it be spelled “Shindelman,” I wondered?
His father misspelled it, Sandy said. It should have been “Shindelman,” not “Shindleman.” I asked whether “shindel” meant something in Yiddish. He answered that the family thought it meant “roofer,” but when I checked, the word “shindle” actually means scissors in Yiddish.
While Sandy did work some in the family grocery store, he also had occasion to help his father with the abattoir – which leads to a great story I’d first heard Sandy tell back in 2018, when I had invited him to speak to a group that I had helped start at the Rady JCC (along with Tamar Barr), known as the Jewish Business Network.
The story of the bull and “old man Schweitzer”
When I spoke to Sandy again recently, I invited him to repeat that story because it was both funny – and insightful.
The story goes like this: “I was 14 years old. The store was open till nine o’clock on Friday.” One Friday, on a June evening, after the store had closed Sandy’s father asked Sandy to go out to a farm owned by someone Sandy knew only as “old man Schweitzer.” (He never did find out Schweitzer’s first name, he told me.)
Schweitzer lived on an 80 acreage farm, Sandy continued, but he didn’t grow anything. He didn’t even have any cattle or chickens. All that he had was a bull and he wanted to sell his bull to Eddie Shindleman.
But old man Schweitzer didn’t drive. He didn’t own a truck. All that he owned was a tractor, Sandy said.
“He drove into town and he shopped at my dad’s store on a tractor because you didn’t need a driver’s license to drive a tractor. And as far as I know, you still don’t. But the tractor was open – like it didn’t have a closed cap.”
Now, at the time, Sandy was only 14 years old. Here he was, being asked to drive out to a farm – and pick up a bull. He said that he already knew how to drive a truck (even though he wasn’t legally supposed to be able to do that), so he went to Schweitzer’s farm in a five-ton truck, along with a hired hand who worked in the abattoir.
Eddie had given Sandy a blank cheque to take with him. Eddie had told Sandy to offer Schweitzer a fair price for the bull and not to try and take advantage of him. Sandy said he looked the bull up and down and offered Schweitzer $420 – which Schweitzer accepted.
So, Sandy and the hired hand loaded the bull on to the truck – which was quite a job, since it turned out the bull weighed 1400 pounds.
It was past dark when Sandy got back to Portage. “I drove by the store. My dad came out and climbed up on the truck and looked at the bull. And he said, ‘How much did you pay for it?’ I said ‘$420.’
“And he didn’t say good job, bad job, nothing.”
Now, Sandy had thought that his father wanted the bull for slaughter, since it was June and Eddie was going to need a lot of ground beef tor the upcoming Portage fair. But when Eddie took a look at the size of the bull, he realized it was too big for him to slaughter. “It would have broken the hoist,” Sandy explained.
Instead, Eddie decided to ship the bull to Burns Meats in Winnipeg.
“We had a special relationship with Burns Meats,” Sandy explained. “We provided a lot of their kill on a weekly basis. And so they treated us well. And we always sold things dressed weight. So it didn’t matter if the thing was full of water, it was dressed weight on the rail.”
Another week went by, and Burns Meats had sent a cheque for the bull. It was for $1,000.
Eddie didn’t say anything immediately when he saw how much the cheque was for.
Sandy said though, that later that day, when “there’s a lull in the store at six o’clock – when everyone’s eating dinner…my dad said, ‘What did you think of the bull sale?’ I said, ‘Well, I think I should quit school. I’ll buy a bull or two a week. And I’ll make more than you’re making standing here in the store.’
“ ‘Yeah.’ he said, ‘Could you have bought it for $350?’ I said, ‘Should I have?’
“He said, ‘no.’ He said, ‘What if old man Schweitzer didn’t take your offer and shipped the bull himself?'”
Eddie did some figuring how much it would have cost Schweitzer to ship the bull and came to the conclusion that Schweitzer would have “got about $780, not $420.”
So he told Sandy to go back to Schweitzer’s and write him another cheque for $400.
Sandy said that when he went back to Schweitzer’s, “I didn’t know that old man Schweitzer had hair because I’d never seen him without” the white hard hat he always wore.
But, he said to Schweitzer: ” ‘Mr. Schweitzer, I made a mistake on the bull. I misjudged the weight. And I have a check here for you.’ And I slid the check across his round table.”
Schweitzer though, said that instead of accepting the cheque he wanted to sign it right back over – and use the money instead as credit for groceries in Sandy’s father’s store.
But when Sandy returned to the store with cheque in hand, as he described it: “My dad is in the corner at the store, leaning over looking out the door, and I see he’s tearing up the check that I gave him. And I said, ‘Why are you doing that? He said, ‘Well, let Trudeau pay for half his groceries.’ “
The moral of the story though – and one that Sandy says has stuck with him throughout his business career, was “I realized that we were succeeding. These were customers. We succeeded by helping others succeed.”
Sandy ventures into real estate at age 18
How Sandy Shindleman came to be involved in real estate is another good story. As he tells it, there was a certain real estate salesman in Portage by the name of Danny Maxwell. According to Sandy, Maxwell told him he had to work only a couple of hours a week in order to make what was a pretty good living, so the idea of venturing into becoming a real estate salesperson had great appeal for someone who was still a teenager.
As he says, “it seemed like an easier way to make a living than what we were doing – standing in the store, carrying bags of flour, sacks of potatoes and cutting meats, et cetera – and kind of being stuck in one place. So, it seemed to me that that was something that should be explored.”
Sandy wrote the real estate licensing exam while he was still in high school. The exam was proctored by the Yellowquill junior high school principal (which was, by the way, not the junior high school Sandy attended).
With real estate license in hand, Sandy decided to make the big move to Winnipeg – on his own.
His first sale, he says, came courtesy of Zivey Chudnow, who owned a building in the Inkster Industrial Park (at 11 Plymouth; it’s now an Amazon warehouse) that he wanted to sell.
Sandy explains that he got to know Zivey when Sandy was only five years old and “used to shag golf balls for him” in Clear Lake.
But, that first successful foray into the real estate business did not lead to a whole series of other successes. As Sandy notes, “after that, I couldn’t make another sale because who’s going to buy anything from an 18-year-old farmer who doesn’t know anything about real estate? In commercial real estate, your buyer knows more than you and the seller knows more than you, but to sell a house, you know, what do I know about a house? I lived in a house. That was about the extent of it.”
So, he thought he might have better luck trying to sell farms. After all, he grew up in Portage and knew a lot about farms. That, too, didn’t pan out: “I wasn’t that successful selling farms. I put an ad in the paper to attract buyers and I tried to sell farms,” but without any success.
Instead, he decided to try his luck at buying some properties himself. “I bought some commercial buildings in Winnipeg and Portage – old buildings, you know, two suites upstairs that shared a bathroom and, you know, old grocery stores that were junk. One of them is still standing, 618 Saskatchewan Avenue West. The other ones aren’t. They fell down, I imagine.”
Things started to change for the better though when Sandy (who, by this time was joined by his older brother Robert) saw an empty Co-op store at 1068 Henderson Highway. Next to it, he says, were “a library, car wash, a Dairy Queen, and a gas bar.” The Co-op owned everything, and Sandy decided to make an offer to purchase what is now known as Rossmere Plaza from the Co-op, which was accepted.
Shindico begins a long and successful relationship with the Akman family
The purchase was completed with the Akman family, and the project was managed and run by Shindico (Sandy says the development was originally built by the Simkin family in the 1960s.) For Sandy, making that first major acquisition proved to be the beginning of a long relationship with the Akman family – something that eventually ended with Shindico acquiring Akman Management in 2023 from Danny Akman.
It was not long after that Sandy saw another opportunity when an empty Loblaws store on Pembina Highway was also for sale. As he says, it was around 1982, and the market for retail was “dead… There were a lot of experienced people that did office leasing, industrial, land, and apartments But retail – there was no glamour in that, so it wasn’t crowded.”
I asked how he financed those early acquisitions? Sandy explained that there were a lot of trust companies at the time – almost all of which have disappeared, but they were willing to lend him money. His approach, he noted – and it’s been his approach throughout his business career, he said, is to “work backwards. I find out how much rent something could produce. And then how much would I have to spend to get that rent?
“Do I have to build a building? Do I have to renovate the building and buy the building? And would the rent allow me to borrow most of the money? Then I would know how much I could pay for it.”
In addition to the trust companies, there were a lot of other “small lending institutions” around that time, he said. Lending “was a competitive business” and Shindico was forging a reputation as a prudent manager with a sophisticated leasing platform, attractive to market tenants. Sandy noted, for instance, that in the early years a lot of the properties Shindico developed were formerly gas stations because gas stations were “closing at that time. The lots were too small for the kinds of uses that they (service stations) have now.”
Sandy also pointed out that a lot of the over 180 properties that Shindico has owned in Canada and the United States over the years, have had the same tenants, such as Domino’s Pizza and Macs Milk Stores. Shindico still owns and operates over 160 properties in Canada and the United States, he added.
But, as Shindico grew, it began to branch into other areas of real estate beyond strip malls. Later on in its growth, Shindico also began Big Box development with companies, such as Walmart, Best Buy, Costco, Real Canadian Superstore, Ashley Furniture, Sobeys, and Safeway. Shindico has also been active in the Tenant Representation business, finding suitable spaces for business like Sobeys, Starbucks, Boston Pizza, Popeyes Chicken and several more. Examples include Grant Park Festival and Grant Park Pavilions (on Taylor Avenue), which are continually expanding. Shindico’s most recent success has been to bring Costco to its Westport development in Winnipeg. This is a much needed fourth store in Winnipeg and will serve all of Western Manitoba, and bring an exciting mixed use development to the area.
A key milestone for Shindico was diversifying into the acquisition and management of apartment buildings in 1984 when it purchased: Number One Evergreen Place – where Sandy and his wife Diane lived for a time.
More recently Shindico has developed purpose built apartment buildings, starting with the Taylor Claire on Taylor Avenue (named for the Shindleman brothers’ mother), followed soon thereafter by the Taylor Lee (named after their good friend and contractor, Robbie Lee) just down the street. Sandy says there will be more apartment buildings on Taylor Avenue in the future.
I asked him why Shindico waited so long before it began moving into the building of apartment buildings? He answered that “I didn’t have the money. You need a lot of money. You know, you’re not pre-leasing them. I can’t get you to sign a lease for three years from now.”
Always cautious in his ventures, Sandy said that for years he also had wanted to get into the personal storage business. “I wanted to be in personal storage probably for 25 years,” he said, “but I couldn’t figure out how to get the equity to build one because again, you don’t sign a lease three years in advance for your personal storage. You can’t pre-lease it. You have to learn that business and learn the market before you could” get into it. But Shindico now owns two personal storage locations – one in Transcona and one on Waverley.
Shindico’s many generous contributions to Winnipeg…and Portage
If I had wanted to write a story detailing all the many facets of Shindico’s business, however, this already very long story could have gone on for many more pages – and even though I suppose anyone reading it might seem like it’s really just a promotional piece for Shindico, I would argue that Shindico is one of Winnipeg’s truly great success stories that doesn’t seem to get very much recognition in the media.
Shindico and the Shindleman family are proud supporters of the communities in which they live, work, and play. Through generous donations to the Health Sciences Centre Foundation and investment in the Shindleman Aquatic Centre in Portage la Prairie, the Willow Tunnel at Assiniboine Park & Zoo, The Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Edward Shindleman Park in Winnipeg, they continue to support important initiatives that are close to their hearts and provide access to great spaces for all to enjoy.
Shindico has produced a very slick four-minute video, which can be viewed on YouTube and the Shindico website, that highlights the tremendous growth that the company has undergone in its 50 years of existence, but my interest in writing stories that have a business component is to try and shy away from analyzing financial aspects that might make one business more successful than another. Instead, I’ve always been more interested in individuals’ personal stories – and what made them tick.
Sandy’s trip to Russia in 1991 – when Russia was in total upheaval
Since Sandy Shindleman is such a great story teller (which I first learned when I heard him at that Jewish Business Network meeting eight years ago), when I spoke to him for this story I asked him to repeat a story he had told about a trip he took to Russia back in 1991.
Sandy has often been called upon to give lectures about commercial real estate in a great many different cities, but it was that trip to Russia which might be the most memorable of any of his many trips.
Readers might recall that 1991 was one of the most turbulent years in Russian history. Mikhael Gorbachev, who was Soviet President and General Secretary of the Communist Party at the time, had announced that there were was to be a free election in what was then still the Soviet Union, but chaos was descending upon Russia as old-line Communists were reluctant to cede power and the pro-democracy forces, led by Boris Yeltsin, were anxious to democratize the country.
Sandy had been invited to give a lecture on commercial real estate by someone from within what was by then known as the Russian Federation (although he says he’s not really clear where the invitation came from). He recalls taking a flight from Montreal to Paris, then on to Moscow, where he was joined by two other guys who were also supposed to be giving lectures on real estate.
But, as Sandy describes it, “I landed and the other two men were there. And I didn’t realize that they were both former CIA guys, because they spoke Russian.”
All hell was breaking loose in Moscow at the time, but Sandy says he was totally oblivious to what was happening. “I didn’t know what was going on. There’s no television, there’s no Tom Brokaw explaining to us what’s going on. Bernie Bellan isn’t writing about it. There’s just a bunch of people running around, and we really didn’t know what we were looking at.”
I asked him whether he ended up giving a lecture? Sandy says he did, but “we were supposed to have simultaneous translation, which we didn’t. We had a guy – Vladimir, who was supposed to help,” but Sandy says he doesn’t really know what Vladimir’s role was.
Shindico moves into the construction business
Getting back to the current moment though, given Shindico’s tremendous growth, I wondered what might lie ahead for Sandy Shindleman. He says that the management of the company is in excellent hands, with Alex Akman now Chief Operating Officer, Leanne Fontaine, Chief Financial Officer, and Justin Zarnowski, In-House Legal Counsel.
That brought me back to asking about Shindico’s acquisition of Akman Management in 2023. According to a press release issued at the time, Akman Management portfolio consisted of “1,200,000 square feet of property across 1,000 multifamily units and 18 commercial assets.” The integration of Akman Management resulted in “a 42% increase in staff at the Shindico Group of companies”, and Sandy says “it was great to acquire a like-minded family style company made up of folks that you would want to have lunch with”.
The year 2023 was also an exciting one for Shindico in that it marked the founding of SNR Construction Ltd, a general contracting division in the Shindico Group of Companies. SNR recently completed an 84,000 square foot warehouse for Shindico in the St. Boniface Industrial Park, and is working on a wide array of multi family and retail projects across the Shindico portfolio.
Considering how successful Shindico has been, I wondered whether Sandy ever thought of taking Shindico public and allowing investors to buy stock in it?
Sandy says he’s not interested in going public, saying “we’re a family office, family business – Alex, Justin and Leanne and others. We’ve got a, a kind of a management group of at least a dozen… We’re just a small company…we can have the leverage of running real estate.”
By the way, Sandy’s brother Robert, Executive Vice President of the Shindico Group of Companies, is an important part of the organization, overseeing property development, operations, and management. Sandy’s wife, Diane, is also very involved in the businessm- as Executive Vice President, Finance. Their daughter, Annie, a graduate of Gray Academy, is currently enrolled in the Asper School of Business. “Perhaps, one day, my daughter might join us,” Sandy said, but in the meantime, as he says in the 50th anniversary Shindico video on YouTube, his goal for Shindico “for the next 50 years is supporting and leading all our professional management to grow.”
Features
American Graduation Speakers Deliver Antizionist Views
By HENRY SREBRNIK Colleges and universities in the United States have hosted and encouraged a surge of radical and pervasive antisemitism in recent years. Graduation commencement ceremonies (known as convocations in Canada) have been a source of tensions over Israel since Oct. 7, 2023. Multiple schools have disciplined students who made pro-Palestinian comments in their speeches.
But professors have also fanned the flames. Faculty members have played a significant role in legitimizing and amplifying antisemitism on college campuses. They have shown a propensity to whitewash Hamas and vilify Israel rather than examine the conflict dispassionately.
University of Michigan professor Derek Peterson praised campus pro-Palestinian student protesters during his commencement speech in Ann Arbor on May 2. The History and African-American studies academic and outgoing faculty senate chair told the graduates to “Sing for the pro-Palestinian student activists who have, over these past two years, opened our hearts to the injustice and inhumanity of Israel’s war in Gaza.” His remarks received loud applause.
“We regret the pain this has caused on a day devoted to celebration and accomplishment. For this, the university apologizes,” Michigan’s interim president, Domenico Grasso, responded. Michigan’s campus Hillel also condemned Peterson’s speech. “Commencement is a celebration of every graduate. It is not a stage for political statements that alienate the Jewish community,” it asserted. On campus, however, an open letter rebuking Grasso and defending Peterson’s speech had been signed by more than 1,100 faculty members, staff and students in less than 24 hours.
Protesters at the university have also vandalized the home of Jordan Acker, a Jewish member of the university’s board of regents. He will no longer serve on the board, while the attorney who defended the university’s encampment participants from some state-level charges received the Michigan Democratic Party’s nomination for Acker’s seat.
Amir Makled won the backing despite social media posts that praised Hezbollah and included antisemitic memes. Makled posted retweets of far-right antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and referred to Hassan Nasrallah as a martyr after he was killed by Israeli strikes in 2024.
Administrators at Rutgers University in New Jersey canceled a commencement speaker on May 15, citing an “inflammatory claim” he tweeted about Israel. Rami Elghandour, a Rutgers alumnus, had his invitation rescinded when his April 20 tweet, which accused Israel of genocide and claimed that Israelis were “running dungeons where they train dogs to sexually assault prisoners,” was uncovered.
“They decided that the feelings of a handful of students who said that my social media posts ‘opposed their beliefs,’ were more important than the experience of the entire graduating class, the reputation of the school, the dignity and belonging of Arab and Muslim students, and the First Amendment,” Elghandour wrote. Rutgers Alumnus Christopher Markus, an Emmy Award-winning screenwriter, delivered the address instead, on May 17.
At Georgetown University, a law professor who disparaged legal efforts to curb pro-Palestinian student activism replaced Morton Schapiro, a pro-Israel Jewish economist and former Northwestern University president, at the commencement, after students launched a petition calling for Schapiro’s removal. The replacement, David Cole, is the former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. In that role, Cole issued a statement soon after the Hamas attack in which he criticized Jewish groups for what he said were calls to “investigate, disband, or penalize pro-Palestinian student groups for exercising their free speech rights.” He compared Congressional investigations on campus antisemitism to McCarthyism.
Cornell University’s Student Assembly on March 12 voted to cut ties with Israel’s Technion University and condemned the university for hosting center-left Israeli politician Tzipi Livni, part of the school’s campus anti-Israel activism. She was accused of being “implicated in war crimes.”
The university’s Jewish president was involved in a recent campus altercation with pro-Palestinian protesters who had surrounded his car following a campus debate on Israel. The Ivy League school’s Board of Trustees issued a statement of support for Michael Kotlikoff following an investigation into the April 30 incident. “President Kotlikoff has shown a steadfast commitment to Cornell’s values and principles, and we are confident he will continue to lead with integrity.”
Following the talk, members of the protest group Students for a Democratic Cornell followed the president to his car and appeared to try to block its path. When he did edge his way out of his parking spot, they said he bumped some of the protesters with his vehicle. Despite all that, President Kotlikoff was himself the speaker at the university’s May 23 commencement.
A flag with swastikas surrounding the Star of David flew briefly atop a New York University building during a graduation event May 13, as hundreds gathered for an outdoor celebration called “Grad Alley” on West Fourth Street. “We are shocked and deeply troubled that this hateful symbol expressing antisemitism was raised on a flagpole overlooking Washington Square Park,” said NYU spokesperson Wiley Norvell.
Student government leaders at the university had objected to the selection of Jonathan Haidt as the graduation speaker at Yankee Stadium May 14, calling it “deeply unsettling.” An NYU social psychologist and author, he has been highly critical of the culture in which many young adults today are raised.
A network of anti-Israel activist groups coordinated “Nakba 78” protests across the United States the weekend of May 15, with organizers using the anniversary of Israel’s founding to challenge the Jewish state’s right to exist. University of California campuses have faced an antisemitism crisis, with dramatic increases in harassment, intimidation, and exclusionary conduct targeting Jewish students and others labeled “Zionist” or “pro-Israel.” Among many events, University of California, Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian spoke at a three-day “Islam, Memory and the Nakba” conference in Burlingame, Oakland and Los Gatos.
Even the UCLA campus Hillel was targeted. The Undergraduate Students Association Council condemned an April 14 Yom HaShoah event organized by Hillel featuring freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov. He was kidnapped from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, and held hostage in Gaza until his release in a prisoner exchange in February 2025.
“While we affirm the humanity of all people impacted by violence, we reject the selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence,” they stated. “Israel is currently continuing to carry out what has been widely identified by human rights advocates as a genocide in Gaza, while also expanding its illegal military campaign into Lebanon.”
This has become part of an effort to delegitimize Hillel chapters, long seen as the main address for Jewish life on most American campuses. Hillel International asks all its affiliate chapters to maintain an unwavering commitment and support for Israel, discouraging criticism of the Israeli state.
The New School, a university in New York City, on May 2 rejected a student government vote to defund and cut ties with the campus chapter of Hillel. The student senate a day earlier had voted to strip funding and stop collaboration with the campus chapter of the Jewish student organization, claiming violations of “international law” due to volunteer opportunities it has offered with the Israel Defence Forces. They also cited Hillel’s promotion of 10-day Birthright trips and other programs in Israel. Hillel International and other Jewish groups have said that efforts to shut down the Jewish student organization are antisemitic.
But it seems to be working. Swarthmore College in 2015 became the first campus to break with Hillel International. They began to call themselves an “Open Hillel,” then rebranded entirely after the parent organization threatened legal action over a civil rights panel it deemed too critical of Israel. Now, the student leaders of the campus Hillel at Middlebury College have voted to rename its student group, moving to distance it from an international organization they say is too pro-Israel. It was renamed the Jewish Association at Middlebury. Might others follow?
Henry Srebrnik is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
Tracking U.S. Immigration Statistics by Year: Shifts in Policy and Population Growth
Every number tells a story. Behind each datapoint on U.S. immigration lies a family that crossed a border, a student who arrived with a scholarship, or a worker chasing opportunity. Taken together, these stories form the demographic backbone of the country.
This article traces how immigration has shifted across time and into 2026. By focusing on statistics, we can see how policies, world events, and enforcement measures leave clear marks on US immigration. The aim is not just to report numbers, but to understand what they mean for America’s growth, its labor force, and its future.
Illegal Immigration Statistics USA 2026
Numbers on unauthorized immigration are never exact, but careful estimates reveal striking trends. This section draws from research led by Jennifer Lockman, a senior analyst affiliated with an essay writing service, EssayService, known for blending demographic data with policy context.
Lockman, who often collaborates with professional human essay writers online to translate complex data into accessible reports, describes her process as “writing an essay in numbers”: collecting surveys, interviewing migrants, and checking official counts against lived experience. Her 2026 research involved both government datasets and community-based surveys, making the results more credible.
She found that by 2023, the U.S. undocumented population had surged to 14 million, the largest in history. Roughly 27% of all immigrants in the U.S. lacked legal status at that point. But in early 2026, the trend reversed: deportations rose, border encounters fell, and the total unauthorized population declined for the first time in over a decade.
Lockman’s approach gave weight to personal accounts, such as Central American families waiting years for asylum rulings or Venezuelan migrants finding “twilight” legal status. These essay-style narratives backed the data: 6 million of the 14 million undocumented migrants in 2023 held temporary protections (asylum applicants, DACA, TPS holders), leaving them neither fully documented nor fully unauthorized.
Unauthorized Immigrant Population and Trends (2010–2026)
| Year | Estimated Unauthorized Population | Share of Total Immigrant Population | Notes |
| 2010 | 11.2 million | 24% | Plateau after 2007 surge |
| 2015 | 11.0 million | 23% | Stable, slight decline |
| 2020 | 10.3 million | 22% | Pandemic slowed inflows |
| 2022 | 12.8 million | 25% | Border arrivals surged |
| 2023 | 14.0 million | 27% | Record high |
| Jan 2026 | 13.9 million | 26% | Peak levels |
| Jun 2026 | 13.5 million | 26% | Decline after policy changes |
Key facts:
- Mexico remains the top origin, about 5.5 million people (40%).
- Central America accounts for ~20% (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador).
- Venezuela has grown rapidly, adding ~500,000 recent arrivals.
- Roughly 4% of the entire U.S. population is unauthorized.
Lockman concludes that immigration enforcement in 2026 created “the first visible dip in the shadow population,” but warned that long-term structural issues remain unresolved.
U.S. Immigration by Year: A Historical Perspective
The US immigration tendencies show clear peaks and valleys tied to events. In the 1990s, the U.S. legalized millions under the Immigration Reform and Control Act, pushing green card totals to a historic 1.8 million in 1991. After that, flows stabilized at about 1 million new permanent residents annually, until the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 cut arrivals by nearly half.
By FY 2023, recovery was in full swing, with 1.17 million new green cards issued. Adding temporary migrants, asylum seekers, and undocumented arrivals, the foreign-born population climbed to 53.3 million by January 2026, or 15.8% of the U.S. population. That was the highest share since records began.
Yet, for the first time in 50 years, the number dipped in the first half of 2026, down to 51.9 million (15.4%) by June. This decline underscores how quickly policy can reshape the chart, from expansion to contraction in just months.
The US immigration chart for the last three decades makes the shift visible:
| Year | Total Foreign-Born Population | Share of U.S. Population | Notable Context |
| 1990 | 19.8 million | 7.9% | Start of modern growth |
| 2000 | 31.1 million | 11% | Post-1990s inflows |
| 2010 | 40.0 million | 13% | Strong growth |
| 2020 | 45.0 million | 13.7% | Pandemic slows flows |
| 2023 | 47.8 million | 14.5% | Border surge |
| Jan 2026 | 53.3 million | 15.8% | All-time high |
| Jun 2026 | 51.9 million | 15.4% | First decline in 50+ years |
The picture is clear: immigration has been the sole driver of U.S. population growth in recent years, even as birth rates among the native-born decline.
How Many Immigrants Came to the U.S. in 2026?
By mid-2026, immigration flows had already shifted noticeably. According to US immigration statistics released by DHS and the Census Bureau, roughly 1.2 million immigrants entered the U.S. in the first half of 2026 through legal channels: green cards, work visas, student visas, and refugee admissions combined. That’s a slight drop compared to 2023 and 2024, when yearly admissions reached over 2 million.
When unauthorized migration is factored in, early 2026 arrivals added another estimated 250,000 to 300,000 people. This marked the smallest six-month increase in over a decade, reflecting tightened enforcement and economic slowdowns abroad.
Immigrant Admissions and Arrivals (2023–2026)
| Year | Legal Permanent Residents | Temporary/Work/Study | Refugees & Asylum Grants | Estimated Unauthorized Arrivals | Total |
| 2023 | 1.17 million | 1.1 million | 200,000 | 1.7 million | ~4.2 million |
| 2024 | 1.05 million | 950,000 | 180,000 | 1.5 million | ~3.7 million |
| 2026 (Jan–Jun) | 600,000 | 500,000 | 95,000 | 250,000 | ~1.45 million |
These figures reveal a paradox: even as the U.S. foreign-born population peaked in early 2026, inflows slowed soon after, signaling a turning point.
Facts About Immigrants: Beyond the Numbers
Every chart hides a set of lived experiences. Behind US immigration statistics are students, workers, and families reshaping communities. Here are some highlights:
- Top origins: Mexico (23%), India (6%), China (5%), Philippines (5%).
- Education levels: 47% of immigrants arriving since 2010 hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.
- Labor force impact: Immigrants represent 18% of the U.S. workforce as of 2026.
- Citizenship: Nearly 45% of the foreign-born are naturalized U.S. citizens.
- Households: Roughly 14% of U.S. households are headed by an immigrant, many of them multigenerational.
- Economic output: Immigrant-led businesses generate over $1.3 trillion in sales annually, fueling both local and national economies.
These numbers remind us that immigration is not just a border issue. It shapes schools, hospitals, and industries across every state.
Policy Shifts and Their Impact
Immigration ebbs and flows with the law. Every reform, executive order, or court ruling alters the trajectory of entries and the size of the foreign-born population.
Key policy-linked shifts:
- 1990s IRCA reforms legalized millions, creating the largest one-year spike in green cards.
- Post-9/11 tightened visa screening and slowed flows in the early 2000s.
- 2017–2020 restrictions cut refugee resettlement to historic lows (below 20,000 annually).
- 2021–2023 expansions raised ceilings again and offered protections to Venezuelans and Afghans.
- 2026 enforcement showed the first measurable decline in the total immigrant population in half a century.
Taken together, these shifts reveal a pendulum effect: expansion, contraction, and expansion again. Immigration policy has never been static, and each wave leaves long shadows in classrooms, in labor markets, and in family reunifications.
Conclusion: The Changing Shape of Immigration
Looking ahead, immigration will remain central to U.S. growth. With declining birth rates among native-born Americans, new arrivals sustain both population and workforce numbers. Whether immigration grows or contracts depends less on individual desire to migrate than on how U.S. policy balances enforcement and opportunity.
Immigration data is a mirror. It reflects national priorities, international crises, and the human drive to move. The question is not whether immigration shapes the U.S., but how the U.S. chooses to shape immigration.
Features
Brave American hero only US soldier to be included among Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations
By MYRON LOVE Courage is a rare quality. More than 80 years ago, Roddie Edmonds, a master sergeant in the American army, showed what courage looked like when the then-POW successfully stared down the barrel of a Nazi gun, thereby saving the lives of about 200 of his Jewish fellow POWS.
In 2013, Edmonds became the first American soldier to be inducted into Yad Vashem’s list of Righteous Among the Nations – a designation that recognizes non-Jews who risked their lives during World war II to shelter and save Jewish lives. Earlier this year, he was also awarded the Medal of Honour, America’s highest medal for bravery.
On Wednesday, May 6, Roddie’s son, Chris, was in Winnipeg to tell his father’s story. Speaking at the Truth and Life Worship Centre in St. Vital to an audience of Jewish community members and non-Jewish supporters, the younger Edmonds, a Christian pastor from Tennessee, related how his father – at the age of 14 – in Chris’s words, committed himself to Jesus.
In the brutal winter of 1944, Master Sargent Roddie Edmonds and his 106th infantry division were thrust into action for the first time, in the Ardennes Forest. They were unprepared for what was to come.
Five days after their posting, they were hit hard by an unexpected Nazi onslaught in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge, the last great battle of the war on the Western front. Edmonds’ unit was quickly overrun and he was one of as many as 9,000 GIs who were taken prisoner.
Chris Edmonds described the POWs’ dire situation in detail. They were forced to walk for four days in freezing cold, deep snow, and constant rain. They were then put into the Nazis’ notorious sealed box cars – standing room only – and subsequently divided among several POW camps.
Master Sgt. Edmonds found himself the ranking officer responsible for almost 1,300 POWS – among them about 200 Jewish American GIs. It was Nazi practice to separate the Jewish GIs from the others and ship them to concentration camps.
On January 7, the POWs’ first day in camp, the Nazi commandant ordered Edmonds to tell only the Jewish GIs to turn up for roll call the next morning. The night before, Edmonds spoke to all of his charges and they all agreed on a plan. The next morning, all of the GIs presented themselves – including the weak and the sick – all claiming to be Jewish.
The Nazi commandant – red in the face with anger – put a gun to the 22-year-old Edmond’s head and demanded that he identify the Jewish GIs. He refused. Instead, according to his son, Chris, Roddie calmly pointed out to the commandant that the war would soon be over, the Allies were going to win, and if the commandant were to harm any of the POWs, he might be prosecuted for war crimes after the war.
As Chris noted, the colour drained from the commandant’s face, he put the gun down, and returned to his office.
Liberation for the POWS came on May 5, 1945, with the arrival of a couple of American tank columns.
Chris attributed his father’s bravery to his deep faith and love of God.
“Dad used to say that fear of people makes you scared, but fear of God makes you brave.”
Now, as was the norm, returning soldiers, POWs and Holocaust survivors rarely spoke about their war time experiences – not even to their families. All Chris knew about his father’s war was that he was a POW.
Roddie Edmonds came home, married, had a family, was an outstanding dad – according to his son – and enjoyed a successful career in sales. He died in 1985 at the age of 66.
Chris Edmonds first learned about his father’s heroism in 2008 while reading an interview in the New York Times with Lester Tanner, a prominent New York-based attorney. During the course of the interview, Tanner – whose original name was Tannenbaum – mentioned the American master sergeant who had saved his life.
Chris Edmonds reached out to Tanner, who subsequently invited the Edmonds family to come to New York where the former GI arranged for the family to be lodged at the prestigious Harbor Club and generally gave them the royal treatment. Tanner also described what had happened in that POW camp.
Chris was inspired to learn all he could about his father’s war time experiences. Fortunately, his mother had kept all of his father’s effects. Among his father’s possessions, Chris found a detailed diary of his father’s time as a POW.
As a result of Chris Edmonds’ research, he wrote a book titled “No Surrender; A father, a Son and an extraordinary Act of Heroism That Continues to Live on Today” (with co-author Douglas Century). He also produced a documentary, “Footsteps of My Father,” which includes commentary by Tanner and some of the other Jewish POWs who were spared as a result of Roddie Edmonds’ bravery.
The documentary was part of Chris’s presentation at the Truth and Life Worship Centre.
Chris Edmonds has also founded an organization: “Roddie’s Code,” which is dedicated to “extending the leadership and legacy of his father to future generations.”
Edmonds was brought to Winnipeg by community leader Larry Vickar and Christian Zionist Pastor Rudy Fidel, both of whom heard Edmonds speak in Florida earlier this year. The presentation here was sponsored by B’nai Brith Canada’s Manitoba Jewish-Christian Roundtable.
While in Winnipeg, Edmonds was also able to present his inspiring story to close to 700 students at Gray Academy, St. Paul’s High School, and Vincent Massey Collegiate.
In closing, Chris Edmonds noted that his father’s actions in that POW cap didn’t just save the 200 Jewish POWs who were there, but also their future generations – numbering around 20,000, who would not have been alive today.
“My dad used to say that there are two main purposes in life,” Chris said. “