In just one year, the Trump administration’s highly visible crusade against immigration has brought new entries into the U.S. to a grinding halt. The demographic consequences are already starting to show up in economic data, and could soon worsen the increasingly dire state of the nation’s $38.8 trillion (and growing) national debt.
Net international migration to the U.S. peaked at 2.7 million new entries in 2024, but has since sharply declined. It fell to 1.3 million last summer, according to January Census data, and then turned net negative, according to research from Brookings, meaning more people are leaving the U.S. than coming in. The private sector has weighed in, too, with Goldman Sachs economists reporting last week that immigration policies put in place over the past year have resulted in an 80% decline in net migration relative to the historical average.
