The United States saw its immigrant population decline for the first time in more than 50 years this year, with President Donald Trump's immigration policies also impacting the nation's labour force.
Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of illegal immigrants.
In his first 100 days since returning to the White House in January, he has taken 181 executive actions on immigration to curtail the arrival of new immigrants and deport noncitizen immigrants.
The full effects of these policies remain to be seen, but already they are contributing to a declining immigrant population – especially the unauthorized immigrant population.
1 million immigrants disappear from US
Over 1 million legal and illegal immigrants disappeared from the country's labour force from January through the end of July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analysed by the Pew Research Center.
In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the US – the most ever recorded.
However, in ensuing months, the number of immigrants that left or were deported outweighed incoming foreigners, marking the first decline since the 1960s.
The new data, as of June this year, revealed that the number of immigrants living in the US had dropped to 51.9 million.
The proportion of US residents that are immigrants also shrank, down from a recent historic high of 15.8% to 15.4%.
In 2023, nearly one-in-five US workers (19%) were immigrants, up from 15% two decades earlier. This share increased steadily since at least 1995, when they made up 12% of the labor force.
US still has world's largest immigrant base
Although the nation's immigrant population has declined, the US remains home to more immigrants than any other country. Since 1965, more than 76 million immigrants have come to the country.
As of 2024, the second-largest immigrant population lived in Germany, numbering around 17 million, according to the latest estimates from the United Nations.
However, several countries have a higher proportion of immigrants than the US. In Canada for example, immigrants account for 22% of the population. In the UAE, about three-quarters of all residents were born elsewhere.
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