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The nation’s foreign-born population has declined by 2.2 million in the first seven months of President Donald Trump’s second term, a drop researchers attribute to record-low illegal immigration and an increase in migrants returning to their home countries.
The analysis, conducted by Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler of the Center for Immigration Studies, found that between January and August, the number of foreign-born residents in the U.S. fell sharply, including a 1.6 million decrease in the estimated population of illegal immigrants.
The researchers credit the Trump administration’s intensified immigration enforcement for the decline. “We think the evidence is strong that most or all of the decline in the foreign-born population shown in the CPS is real and primarily reflects a reduction in new arrivals and, in particular, a large increase in emigration,” Camarota and Zeigler wrote.
Department of Homeland Security officials recently reported that 1.6 million illegal immigrants have self-deported this year, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has carried out more than 400,000 deportations.
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions reached their lowest level in more than five decades during fiscal year 2025, marking what officials called a historic turnaround in border security, RSBN previously reported.
According to preliminary figures from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, agents made 237,565 apprehensions between Oct. 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2025, marking the fewest since 1970, when 201,780 apprehensions were recorded.
“We have had the most secure border in American history and our end of year numbers prove it. We have shattered multiple records this year and once again we have broken a new record with the lowest number of Southwest border apprehensions in 55 years,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in the news release. “Under President Trump, we have empowered and supported our law enforcement to do their job and they have delivered.”
Officials noted that 72 percent of this year’s encounters occurred during the final months of the Biden administration, before President Donald Trump took office in January. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott credited the drop to stricter enforcement policies under President Trump.
“Fiscal Year 2025 shows what happens when we enforce the law without compromise,” Scott said. “Today agents are empowered to do their jobs — and the result is the lowest apprehensions in more than five decades, and the most secure border in modern history.”
