Net immigration to the United States is collapsing. The Census Bureau reports it fell from a 2.7 million peak in 2024 to 1.3 million in 2025, and projects a further drop to about 321,000 in 2026; the Congressional Budget Office projects roughly 570,000.[6][11] Either figure is a decline of around 80% from the peak, achieved without a single amendment to the Immigration Act of 1990 and without a single vote in Congress.
U.S. net international migration, per year
Net immigration surged, then collapsed
Net immigration peaked at 3.3 million in 2023 and is projected to fall to about 570,000 in 2026 (CBO), or as low as 321,000 (Census Bureau) - a drop of roughly 80% from the 2024 peak, and below the 2010-2019 average of about 920,000 a year.
Net immigration counts arrivals minus departures across all categories, not green cards alone. Green-card admissions specifically reached about 1.36 million in 2024, the highest since 1991. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (January 2026); Congressional Budget Office, Demographic Outlook 2026-2056 (January 2026).
The reduction runs through two pre-existing executive authorities: Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which lets the president suspend the entry of any class of aliens whose admission is judged "detrimental to the interests of the United States," and the public-charge doctrine, which lets the State Department refuse immigrant visas to applicants likely to rely on government benefits. Green-card admissions specifically reached about 1.36 million in 2024, the highest since 1991,[1] and immigrant-visa issuances have since fallen about 21% year over year under the new restrictions.[7]
Reductions by the Trump Administration
Since Donald Trump's return to office in January 2025, his administration has reduced legal immigration in three primary ways:
Full travel ban (19 countries)
For these 19 countries, visa issuance is broadly suspended across immigrant and nonimmigrant categories - immigrant, tourist, business, student - subject to limited exceptions (lawful permanent residents, certain diplomatic and special-immigrant categories, and case-by-case national-interest waivers). The list groups into three categories.
Failed states unable to verify the identity of travelers:
- Afghanistan
- Somalia
- Syria
- Yemen
- Libya
- South Sudan
- Mali
- Burkina Faso
- Niger
- Sierra Leone
- Republic of the Congo
- Equatorial Guinea
State sponsor of terrorism:
- Iran
Countries that refuse the return of removed nationals:
- Chad
- Myanmar
- Eritrea
- Haiti
- Sudan
- Laos
Afghanistan was elevated to the full ban effective January 1, 2026, after a shooting in Washington, D.C. involving an Afghan national admitted under the 2021 evacuation operation.
Partial travel ban (19 countries)
Immigrant visas, tourist and business visas, and student exchange visas are suspended. Diplomatic categories may still apply.
- Nigeria
- Tanzania
- Cuba
- Venezuela
- Mauritania
- Tonga
- Senegal
- Togo
- Angola
- Benin
- Burundi
- Côte d'Ivoire
- Dominica
- Gabon
- The Gambia
- Malawi
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
U.S. travel bans, May 2026
Barred from entering the United States
19 countries face a full travel ban (all visa categories suspended). 19 more face a partial ban (immigrant, visitor, and student visas suspended). Tap any shaded country for the listed reason.
Full travel ban
Partial travel ban
Consular green-card freeze (75 countries)
On January 14, 2026, the State Department announced an indefinite pause on consular immigrant visa processing for the nationals of 75 countries, citing public-charge concerns. The Cato Institute estimates the freeze blocks approximately 324,000 immigrant visa issuances per year.[5] Domestic adjustment of status remains operational for many of the affected countries. The freeze does not stop entry on tourist or student visas (someone can still come to study at an American institution, or hold an H-1B), but it pauses the immigrant visa pipeline that is the standard route to a green card.
Of the 75 countries on the freeze list, 23 were already restricted by the full or partial travel ban above - for them, the freeze adds nothing new. For the remaining 52 countries, however, the green-card freeze is the first U.S. immigration restriction they have faced. Those 52 are:
- Albania
- Algeria
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Bahamas
- Bangladesh
- Barbados
- Belarus
- Belize
- Bhutan
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Brazil
- Cambodia
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Colombia
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Egypt
- Ethiopia
- Fiji
- Georgia
- Ghana
- Grenada
- Guatemala
- Guinea
- Iraq
- Jamaica
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kosovo
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyz Republic
- Lebanon
- Liberia
- Moldova
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Nepal
- Nicaragua
- North Macedonia
- Pakistan
- Russia
- Rwanda
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Thailand
- Tunisia
- Uganda
- Uruguay
- Uzbekistan
Green-card pathway, May 2026
Who is blocked from the green-card pathway
The State Department froze consular immigrant visa processing for 75 countries on January 14, 2026 under the public-charge authority. The 52 freeze-only countries are shaded below; the other 23 are already on the full or partial ban. Domestic adjustment of status remains available.
Consular green-card freeze
Together, the three measures cover 90 distinct countries with some level of restriction.
Recommendations
Write the executive measures into a law replacing the 1990 Immigration Act, then tighten the executive tools that remain:
- Cap annual legal admissions at about 200,000, an 80% cut from the pre-restriction baseline and the same scale as the 1924 reduction.
- Eliminate the Diversity Visa lottery, which makes up to about 55,000 green cards available a year, awarded at random with no test of skills, language, or ties to the country.
- Cap family-based immigration at 100,000 a year, limited to spouses and minor children, ending sponsorship for parents, adult siblings, and adult children.
- Replace H-1B with a narrow exceptional-talent visa capped below 10,000 a year, set a salary floor above the 95th percentile of the relevant U.S. occupation, and eliminate Optional Practical Training.
- Make immigrant-visa and green-card categories the first line of restriction, expanding the consular green-card freeze faster and to more countries than the full travel ban reaches.
- Elevate to the full travel ban the 14 countries that already meet a failed-state, terrorism-nexus, or refusal-to-repatriate criterion but sit only on the green-card freeze or partial ban, or face no restriction at all.
Center for Sustainable Immigration recommendation
Countries that should be added to the full travel ban
These 14 countries already meet at least one full-ban criterion - failed state, terrorism nexus, or refusal to take back removed nationals - but sit only on the green-card freeze or the partial ban, or face no restriction at all. Tap any country for the rationale.
Sources
- DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics, Lawful Permanent Residents Annual Flow Report - 2023 baseline (1.17M) and 2024 figures (1.36M)
- U.S. Department of State, Immigrant Visa Processing Updates for Nationalities at High Risk of Public Benefits Usage - The 75-country consular freeze list
- Immigration Act of 1990, Public Law 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978 - The governing law for legal immigration
- Congressional Research Service, IN12631, "Expanded Travel Ban Effective January 2026" - Full and partial travel ban scope
- Cato Institute, "New Ban Hits Half of Legal Immigrants - Even Citizens' Spouses and Kids" - Freeze impact estimate (~324,000 issuances/year)
- Congressional Budget Office, The Demographic Outlook, 2026-2056 (January 2026) - net immigration of about 570,000 projected for 2026, revised down from an earlier estimate of 1.6 million
- Niskanen Center, Legal Immigration in Numbers - immigrant-visa issuances about 21% lower in September 2025 than September 2024
- Executive Order 13993, "Revision of Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities," January 20, 2021 - Biden revocation of first-term Trump travel ban (precedent for reversibility)
- 8 U.S.C. § 1151, Worldwide level of immigration - Admission ceilings set by Congress
- 8 U.S.C. § 1153, Allocation of immigrant visas - Family and employment preference categories
- U.S. Census Bureau, "U.S. Population Growth Slows Due to Historic Decline in Net International Migration" (January 2026) - net international migration 2.7 million (2024) to 1.3 million (2025), projected about 321,000 for 2026