New population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that immigration to the United States fell significantly over a period that includes the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The agency estimated on Jan. 27 that net international migration declined from a high of 2.7 million in 2024 to 1.3 million in 2025.
The Census Bureau projects that the number will fall further in 2026 if trends continue, dwindling to 321,000. It also predicts the country could be on the path to negative net migration—more people leaving the United States than entering it.
“If those trends continue, it would be the first time the United States has seen net negative migration in more than 50 years,” the agency reported.
Notably, the new 2025 figures cover the period between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. That corresponds to roughly the last seven months of the Biden administration and the first five months of the second Trump administration, a presidency marked by a crackdown on illegal immigration to the United States.
The Census Bureau does not break down its immigration figures by legal status. The agency estimates that non-United States-born immigration fell from over 3 million to under 2 million between the two most recent periods it analyzed.
A historical analysis from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank shows that net migration to the United States became an increasingly important contributor to its population growth over the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
In the article discussing its new numbers, the Census Bureau notes that its 2024 figures were modified “to account for the large number of humanitarian migrants (such as refugees and asylum seekers) who entered the United States from 2022 to 2024.”
The agency also changed the way it projected future figures, assessing that estimates predicated on trends before January 2025, when Trump took office, would assume that too much immigration was taking place.
The latest data come as the Trump administration highlights a decrease in the number of illegal aliens in the United States due to both removals and self-deportation.
As of Jan. 20, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that almost 3 million illegal aliens have left the country during Trump’s first year of his second term.
The Census Bureau’s estimates relied in part on its Current Population Survey (CPS). Though constrained by a comparatively small sample size, the CPS shows that the foreign-born population in the United States declined by 1.4 million during the first six months of 2025.
Data from that survey show that the foreign-born population in the United States reached an all-time peak of 53.3 million in January 2025, the tail end of the Biden administration.
The agency found that population growth rate in the United States has contracted thanks to falling net international migration.
During the July 2024 to July 2025 period, the country added 1.8 million people, according to the Census Bureau’s estimates. That’s in line with a growth rate of 0.5 percent, down from 1 percent previously.
While most states saw a population increase, five of them—California, West Virginia, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Vermont—lost inhabitants.
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