An analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s household survey found a major decrease in the U.S. immigrant population from January to May, with roughly 1 million leaving the country.
The Center for Immigration Studies published an analysis of the BLS’s Current Population Survey, giving some of the first concrete indications that President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are having a substantial effect on the country’s illegal immigrant population.
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Using various methods of analysis, CIS researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler estimated a major decrease in the illegal population of the United States this year, decreasing from 15.8 million in January to 14.8 million in May:
The estimated decrease in the U.S.’s foreign-born population is one of the largest in a four-month period over the past three decades. The decrease was almost entirely among noncitizens, with the number of naturalized citizens seeing no reduction from January to May.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted the exit of 601,000 foreign-born individuals from the labor force over the same period.
The decrease is the first downturn in the U.S. illegal immigrant population since former President Joe Biden took office in 2021. His term saw the estimate of illegal immigrants in the U.S. increase by roughly 5.6 million, from 10.2 million in the first quarter of 2021 to a peak of 15.8 million in January.
One key metric driving the estimate was measuring the population of noncitizens from Latin America who arrived in 1980 or later, a figure established to overlap substantially with illegal immigrants. That number has decreased by 1.45 million since December.
The study noted that not all administrative data are available, so that estimate may be preliminary.
Camarota and Zeigler noted some positive effects the developments could have on the U.S. workforce.
“A large decline in illegal immigrants could be very helpful to the less-educated U.S.-born and legal immigrant workers, whose wages may rise as a result. Further, a tighter labor market and higher wages may help to draw back into jobs the near record number of working-age American men without a college degree not in the labor force,” they said.
The data are one of the first major indications that Trump’s immigration policies are having a sizable effect on removing illegal immigrants from the U.S. The number is much higher than official deportation numbers, suggesting many of those who left the U.S. left voluntarily, possibly a successful example of Trump’s “self-deportation” strategy.