Under Trump, US Immigrant Population Shrinks for First Time in 60 Years

Source: Newsweek

Published Aug 21, 2025 at 10:00 AM EDT


The undocumented immigrant population in the United States reached 14 million in 2023, the highest level on record, after increasing by 3.5 million over two years, but the immigrant population overall has begun to shrink.

The new estimate from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, released Thursday, is a marked increase in previous figures of around 11 million attached to the undocumented population, but researchers have found that it has begun falling as President Donald Trump implements his hard-line immigration agenda.

"The other big takeaway is that, at least as of '23, a very large share of this unauthorized immigrant population, over 40 percent, actually had legal statuses that protected them from immediate deportation," Jeff Passel, senior demographer at Pew Research Center, told Newsweek ahead of the report's release.

"They had mostly temporary statuses, but they did have legal statuses that meant they could stay in the country and a lot of them had permission to work legally."

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/trump-immigrant-population-decline-undocumented-peak-data-maps-2116385