“Unprecedented.” That description comes up repeatedly in describing the size of the immigrant population that President Trump inherited from President Biden. During Biden’s four years, the estimated number of immigrants in the United States, both legal and illegal, rose from 45.0 million to 53.3 million. The increase was so rapid that the U.S. Census Bureau had trouble keeping up. Initially, the Bureau reported that net international migration (people entering the United States minus people leaving) was a combined two million in 2022 and 2023. It later revised that estimate up to four million. In 2024 alone, net migration hit 2.8 million, a number that is quite literally unprecedented: it is more than double the highest annual net migration figure recorded in U.S. history before the Biden presidency.
The historical high point for immigration in the United States had been the “Great Wave” era at the turn of the twentieth century, when the U.S. population was 14.8 percent immigrant in 1890 and 14.7 percent in 1910. By January of 2025, however, immigrants constituted a record 15.8 percent of the population. Just two years earlier, the Census Bureau had projected that this percentage would not be reached until the year 2042.
Due to a pre-election tightening of border policy, illegal immigration slowed in the last months of the Biden presidency. Then it came to a near halt when Trump took office. Operational control of the border, as well as deportations, voluntary departures, natural mortality, and a slowdown in legal entries appear to have caused the immigrant population to decline in 2025. Rarely do demographic trends undergo such whiplash.
The sudden decline represents an opportunity for U.S. workers, who now face less competition from immigrant labor. At the same time, the volatility of immigration policy may limit the benefits it can offer. Below, we discuss how immigration can put downward pressure on the wages, employment opportunities, and working conditions of competing American workers. Both low- and high-skill natives are susceptible, but our greater focus will be on the bottom end of the skills spectrum, where immigration impacts the most vulnerable Americans.
Based on our view of the data, the theorized benefits of reduced immigration, such as drawing more low-skill natives back into the labor force, may be beginning to emerge. But in order to fully realize these gains, a sustained policy of low immigration will be necessary over the long term.
. . .