Foreign-Born Population Drops by Nearly 3 Million Under Trump: Stunning New Report

The foreign-born population in the United States has plummeted by nearly 3 million since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, according to a stunning new analysis of government data.

The preliminary analysis by Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, estimates that the nation's foreign-born population dropped from roughly 53.3 million in January 2025 to 50.5 million in July 2026 — a decline approaching 3 million people in just 18 months.

If the estimate holds up, it would mark a dramatic reversal from the massive immigration surge under former President Joe Biden and the first sustained net decline in America's immigrant population since the 1930s.

The numbers, first reported by the Washington Times, are somewhat higher than some other estimates of the immigration decline and should be viewed as preliminary. They are based largely on the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey rather than an official government count of everyone who has entered or left the country.

But the overall trend is unmistakable: Immigration into the United States has slowed dramatically under Trump while deportations and voluntary departures have increased.

Camarota estimates that the illegal immigrant population fell from approximately 15.8 million in January 2025 to 13.5 million in July 2026 — a net decline of roughly 2.3 million.

The legal immigrant population declined by another 600,000, according to the analysis, reflecting fewer refugees, foreign students and other legal arrivals.

The numbers represent a remarkable turnaround from the Biden years, when Camarota estimates the foreign-born population increased by approximately 8.3 million.

Trump returned to office promising the largest deportation operation in American history while simultaneously tightening the border and encouraging illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily.

The new numbers suggest those policies are having an impact well beyond formal deportations.The Department of Homeland Security has previously estimated that millions of illegal immigrants have left the United States since Trump took office, including both formal removals and what the administration calls “self-deportations.”

Camarota's calculation is different. Rather than simply counting people who leave, it attempts to measure the net change in the illegal immigrant population — meaning new arrivals can offset deportations and voluntary departures.

That helps explain why his estimated 2.3 million decline in the illegal population can differ from larger administration estimates of the total number of people who have departed. There is also independent government evidence of an extraordinary immigration slowdown.

The Census Bureau reported in January that net international migration — the number of people entering the United States minus those leaving — plunged from 2.7 million in 2024 to approximately 1.3 million in 2025.

If current trends continue, Census projected that figure would fall again to approximately 321,000 by July 2026. The agency attributed the decline to both lower immigration and increased emigration.

That Census estimate does not establish that the foreign-born population has fallen by 3 million. It measures a different demographic statistic and covers an earlier period. But it does provide official confirmation that the historic immigration surge of the Biden years has gone sharply into reverse.

The Census Bureau also cautions that international migration is particularly difficult to measure because the flows can change rapidly and emigration is much harder to track than births and deaths. Camarota's analysis nevertheless suggests the effects are already large enough to begin changing the country's demographic trajectory.

One surprising finding is that only about 44 percent of the illegal immigrants estimated to have departed were working, according to Camarota. That's considerably below the roughly 60 percent labor-force participation rate he estimates for the illegal immigrant population generally.

That could help explain why the decline has not produced the kind of nationwide economic disruption critics of Trump's mass-deportation agenda predicted, although individual industries and regions could experience greater effects.

The Census Bureau says America's population grew by only 0.5 percent between July 2024 and July 2025, roughly half the previous year's rate, with the slowdown driven primarily by declining international migration.

Trump campaigned in 2024 on the argument that the enormous immigration surge of the previous four years could be reversed through aggressive border enforcement, deportations and policies encouraging illegal immigrants to leave voluntarily.

Fewer than two years into Trump's second term, a net immigration decrease of three million people would be a sign of real progress. 

Editor’s Note: Republicans are fighting for election integrity by requiring proper identification to vote. It's common sense, yet Democrats are spreading lies about the impact of such a measure. 

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