Summary and Key Points – A Brookings Institution analysis estimates net migration turned negative in 2025—between –10,000 and –295,000—driven by fewer entries and higher enforcement activity, including removals and voluntary departures.
-The authors expect migration to stay very low or negative in 2026, while flagging higher uncertainty due to reduced data transparency.
Former President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.
President of the United States Donald Trump speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.
-Brookings argues the economic impact is meaningful: slower labor-force growth, weaker consumer spending, and softer GDP, with spending reduced by an estimated $60 billion to $110 billion across 2025–26.
-The analysis also contrasts removal totals with higher White House claims.
310,000–315,000 Removals vs. 600,000 Claimed: Brookings Disputes the White House Number
The Trump Administration’s second-term immigration crackdown has had a significant effect on net migration, to the point that 2025 was the first year in half a century that net migration was negative.
That’s according to a new report released this week by the Brookings Institution, titled “Macroeconomic implications of immigration flows in 2025 and 2026: January 2026 update.”
The report, authored by Wendy Edelberg, Stan Veuger, and Tara Watson, states that “there was a significant drop-off in entries to the United States in 2025 relative to 2024 and an increase in enforcement activity leading to removals and voluntary departures. We estimate that net migration was between –10,000 and –295,000 in 2025, the first time in at least half a century it has been negative.” That means that this did not happen in any of the four years of the first Trump presidency.
The authors also predicted that net migration will be “very low or negative” in 2026, as they expect that “the pattern of restrictive policy and increased enforcement to continue or intensify through the coming year.”
The authors are, however, clear about “the caveat that recent reductions in data transparency make the estimates more uncertain.”
Is That a Good Thing?
Clearly, the Trump Administration argues that deportations and a decline in new migration will lead to economic prosperity. But the Brookings Institution has a very different view.
“Reduced migration will dampen growth in the labor force, consumer spending, and gross domestic product (GDP). We estimate the sustainable pace of monthly job growth to be between 20,000 and 50,000 in late 2025 and believe it could be negative in 2026,” the report’s authors predicted.
And while the White House argues that immigrants are taking the jobs of native-born Americans, the Brookings authors have a different view of that as well.
“In recent years, growth in the US-born working-age population has been weak, and nearly all growth in the labor force has stemmed from immigration flows,” the authors say. “The 2022–24 immigration surge was accompanied by robust job growth, as immigrants both supplied labor and generated demand for goods and services.”
Reduced immigration, the authors argue, “has modest dampening effects on GDP and will weaken consumer spending by an estimated $60–$110 billion combined over the two years.”
While the administration’s deportations get a great deal of attention, especially with the current ICE surge in Minnesota, a more significant factor is the lack of entry; the “slowdown in new arrivals, especially via humanitarian parole and refugee programs and across the Southwest border, has a bigger effect on reducing migration flows in 2025.”
Also, as reported by ABC News, the Brookings report finds that there have been significantly fewer removals than the White House claims. While Brookings says between 310,000 and 315,000 people were removed in 2025, the Trump administration. Administration places that number at over 600,000.
A Change in 2024
The Brookings report notes that a key moment came not during the Trump presidency, but when the Biden Administration changed rules in mid-2024.
“At 310,000 to 315,000, the 2025 removals are not much higher than the 2024 removals of around 285,000,” the report says. “The nature of these removals has changed, however.”
“In fiscal year 2024, only 18% of ICE removals were initiated by ICE as opposed to US Customs and Border Protection, meaning the vast majority of ICE deportations were of recent border crossers,” Brookings said. “Comparable statistics have not been released for 2025, but it is clear from border statistics and other evidence that most removals in 2025 were from the nation’s interior.”
What About the Travel Bans?
The White House has announced travel restrictions of varying levels on 39 countries over the last year. There are full restrictions on Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, with partial restrictions on more than 20 other countries.
What will that mean for net migration?
“The travel ban is expected to affect 20% of immigrants, but for some categories of immigrants, they likely will be replaced by immigrants from other countries, so we assumed a smaller than 20% drop-off in the category,” the Brookings report says. “In the high scenario, we assume the total number of green cards will continue at its 2025 high level, or 575,000, reflecting the possibility that the policy will not be implemented.”
What It All Means
Brookings also found that the Trump II-era immigration crackdown has had some unexpected effects.
“Certain parts of the economy will see unexpectedly weak economic activity, such as businesses that serve part of the affected immigrant population. Such weakness is the new normal under the current immigration policy, rather than reflecting adverse business-cycle conditions. As the economy adjusts, more accommodative monetary policy should be used cautiously,” the authors write.
What Immigrants Look Like Today
The Pew Research Center, in a survey released in August, found that immigration numbers were already declining from historic highs last year.
“In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded. In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s,” Pew found in that report, which also noted that while Biden’s changes in the middle of 2024 had some effect, it was followed by 181 executive actions on immigration in Trump’s first 100 days back in office.
“As of mid-2025, per Pew, “51.9 million immigrants lived in the US, 15.4 percent of all US residents were immigrants, down from a recent historic high of 15.8 percent, [and] 19 percent of the US labor force were immigrants, down from 20 percent and by over 750,000 workers since January.”
“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,” the report said.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
