The Great Immigration Reversal: Trump’s Real Progress In Tackling Legal Immigration

Sixty-plus years of unchecked mass immigration have eroded the fabric of American society to the point where Americans are beginning to wonder if the country can survive. The focus of the media, left and right, when it comes to immigration, has been on the Minneapolis riots over the arrest and detention of illegal aliens.

What goes unnoticed however, is the seismic shift in immigration policy, particularly legal immigration policy, that arrived with the latest Trump administration.

The fantastic truth is that the floodgates that allow more than 1-1.2million legal immigrants in the United States every year since 1990 are closing. The tide is in fact going out—net emigration of immigrants is becoming the new reality. Under President Trump’s renewed mandate, legal immigration has plummeted. Millions are already departing voluntarily, and millions more who would have come to America have been deterred from doing so. Moreover, projections from within Trump’s administration signal an even sharper decline in legal immigration for 2026 and beyond.

What the executive branch has managed to do, with little help from Congressional leadership, is affect a necessary reset of the legal immigration system that will finally bring an end to the decades of mass immigration that Americans have consistently voted against. While there must be legislation passed by the (as of now) GOP controlled Congress to ensure these immigration changes are enshrined into law, we should take a moment to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of this administration.

The Sharp Drop in Legal Arrivals

In fiscal year 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) processed 2.7 million immigration cases in its third quarter. This marked a 16% plunge from the same point 2024. In other words, fewer people are applying for visas, and the government has taken measures to increase processing times. USCIS and DHS are also simply not approving as many visas. According to a great report by the Niskanen Center, approvals cratered by 21%, while work authorization applications halved in October 2025 compared to the previous year. Consulates issued 20% fewer immigrant visas and 16% fewer nonimmigrant visas in May 2025 compared to 2024, with family-based categories hit hardest. For example, there were 6,128 fewer FX1, FX2, and FX3 visas for immediate relatives requesting to relocate to the United States. International student numbers dropped by 17,457 overall, and overseas visitors fell by over 828,000 in the first 11 months of 2025. This isn’t happenstance. It’s the fruit of aggressive enforcement and bureaucratic action that makes potential immigrants think very seriously about their move to America. Potential fraudsters understand they won’t make the cut under more serious scrutiny.

Most importantly, overall net international migration turned negative (net emigration?) in 2025 for the first time in half a century. According to a January 2026 report by Brookings, anywhere between 10,000 and 295,000 more people left the United States than entered the country in fiscal year 2025.

This is a major turnaround from a period when net migration (including legal immigration, 1-1.2 million annually, and illegal immigration together) into the United States has run into the multiple millions since the 1990s. Green cards issued abroad dipped to 560,000-575,000—down more than 100,000 from 670,000 in 2024. Refugee admissions plummeted to 7,600-12,000 from 105,000. And virtually all new refugees are Afrikaners and other White South Africans fleeing the persecution of their post-apartheid ‘rainbow’ government.

The immigrant population shrank from 53.3 million in January 2025 to 51.9 million by June. This is a 2.6% drop, the first decline since the 1960s.

Overall population growth slowed to 0.5%, adding just 1.8 million to the overall American population which sits somewhere between 345 and 355 million. Every state except two experienced reduced growth rates. These declines stem from the administration’s unyielding stance: travel bans, public charge restrictions, and/or visa restrictions on 93 countries, suspension of refugee programs, and restrictions on family sponsorships. This is on top of the new fees, paperwork, and bureaucratic barriers the administration has been steadily putting into place to reduce legal immigration.

Miller’s Projections

The administration appears to be far from done, and the change in public charge rules looks promising in terms of slashing legal immigration even further. Stephen Miller, currently Deputy White House Chief of Staff, expects that the new rules coming into force in 2026 will cut legal immigration by 33% to 50% over four years, denying 1.5 to 2.4 million green cards. Based on FY2023’s 1.17 million legal immigrants, this means 4.7 million over a term without restrictions. We can expect only half that number under the new regime. The new policies are already affecting immigrant’s immediate relatives, who constitute 48% of legal inflows and are already facing more denials under the expanded public charge criteria. The new rules for 2026 and beyond stand to prevent a further 941,000 to 1.65 million family-based immigrants.

We do, of course, wish that Congress and the administration would restrict immigration even further. The H-1B program needs to be abolished, the Optional Practical Training Program needs to be scrapped, and Chip Roy’s PAUSE Act to institute an immigration moratorium is the single most important piece of legislation sitting in Congress right now. Still, we are grateful for the progress in slowing or reversing our replacement.

For 2026, net migration is projected to land somewhere between -925,000 to +185,000 and given the increasing restrictions, it will likely remain on the lower rather than the higher end of that prediction by the Brookings Institution. Green cards could fall to 490,000-575,000, temporary visas to 1.65-1.99 million, refugees are expected to remain stable at roughly 7,500 and overwhelmingly from South Africa. It is important to note, though, that the projections vary and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts net immigration at 410,000 in 2025 and 570,000 in 2026. Though this is a major downward revision from earlier projections due to administrative crackdowns.

As a result of all these fantastic immigration changes by the administration, it is expected that by 2028-2035 the workforce could shrink by 6.8-15.7 million. Progressives and market fundamentalist conservatives would like you to panic about this, but the reality is that there are more than 7 million prime age working males (ages 25-54) currently out of the job market in the United States. Putting these men back to work is far more important than continuing to import immigrants at a large scale who undercut the American job market. These 7 million young men are not included in the further 10.4% of Americans aged 16-24 who are unemployed (and are looking for work) and the 6.1% of recent tech grads who report unemployment. Millions more Americans are “underemployed” and working in part-time or poverty level wage jobs. According to Bloomberg. more than 8% of American workers could now be classified as “underemployed.” Further reporting by The Hill shows that underemployment rates for recent STEM grads now averages 20%. America does not need more immigrants. It needs to fewer so that our own young people can be directed by a healthier market into more productive, well-paying employment.

A Word on Illegals

In 2025, nearly 3 million illegal aliens left according to figures provided by DHS. The department claims that it has facilitated the deportation of 675,000 illegals while 2.2 million more have opted for self-deportation. While there is some disagreement about these numbers, few institutions disagree that interior enforcement, and therefore illegal departures, have risen rapidly. Brookings pegs illegal immigrant outflows at 520,000-720,000, with 210,000-405,000 more voluntary self-deportations than in a normal fiscal year. This is unsurprising seeing as ICE arrests quadrupled, detention doubled to 70,000 daily, and the government continues to build more facilities and hire more agents. Public charge rules also amplify these departures. The proposed rescission of 2022 regulations expands scrutiny to all benefits, chilling enrollment. At 10-30% disenrollment rates, 1.3 million to 4 million immigrants (both legal and illegal) could forego Medicaid/CHIP benefits. DHS estimates 460,000 disenrollments, but reporting by the KFF shows even broad disenrollment in welfare programs by non-citizens. 11% of immigrant adults avoided programs since January 2025. This “chilling effect” spurs departures, as immigrants weigh benefits against status risks. Past rules caused 18% drops in child participation. Now, with CMS sharing data to ICE, the exodus intensifies.

Toward a Moratorium

Yet projections warn of incomplete victory. Without a full moratorium as proposed by Texas representative Chip Roy and an entirely new immigration system, which we believe should resemble the 1924 Immigration Act proposed here, residual inflows could rebound. If the Congressional GOP does not get its act together and legislate more restrictions into law, a future Democratic president could undue all the Trump administration’s executive actions with executive actions of his or her own. Millions upon millions more legal and illegal immigrants would come pouring into the United States and replacement migration would begin again.