Net migrationi - which refers to arrivals minus departures across every category, legal and illegal - to the United States fell from 2.7 million in 2024 to 1.3 million in 2025. For 2026 the number will fall substantially again, estimated to be between 321,000 and 570,000.[1][2] This was done entirely by the Trump Administration's work, requiring no work from Congress and no amendments to the existing Immigration Act of 1990. While administration has made progress in reducing legal migration, it has been even more successful in regards to illegal immigration
U.S. net international migration
Net migration is down 83% from its 2023 peak
Net migration averaged about 920,000 a year in the 2010s, peaked at 3.3 million in 2023, and fell to 1.3 million in 2025. For 2026 the CBO projects about 570,000 and the Census Bureau about 321,000. The first two bars are decade averages; the rest are single years. Hover any bar for detail.
Reductions in illegal entry
Two figures measure how many people are getting into the country illegally: Border Patrol released zero people into the country every month from May 2025 onward, a streak that is now at fourteen months. Known got-aways, the people detected crossing who are not caught, ran above 2,000 a day at the 2023 peak and now run under 50 a day nationwide. The Congressional Budget Office put got-aways at about 860,000 for 2023 alone. Additionally, apprehensions measure enforcement rather than entry, and have also fallen drastically. They went from 1.5 million in 2024 to around 237,000 in 2025, and 80,882 through July of 2026.[5]
Southwest border apprehensions, by month
The border went quiet in February 2025
Apprehensions measure enforcement, not how many people got in. Border Patrol recorded 249,740 in December 2023. Since February 2025, the monthly figure has run between 4,592 and 10,007.
Apprehensions are a measure of enforcement at the border, not of how many people are living here illegally. They count events rather than people, and whether one adds to the illegal population depends on what happened next: someone removed does not stay, someone released pending proceedings does.
The number the policy is aimed at is the illegal population itself, and DHS has published no estimate since January 2022, when it stood at 11 million.[6] Pew put the figure at 14 million in July 2023, on a different basis.[7] No measured figure exists for the period since enforcement tightened.
Illegal population living in the U.S.
No official estimate since January 2022
Border apprehensions measure enforcement at the border. This is the number the policy is aimed at, and the official series stops before the enforcement began.
estimate
Illegal entries collapsed while removals rose to 319,980 in 2025 and 234,236 in the first six months of 2026, and DHS separately estimates 1.9 million people left on their own since January 2025, which is not a removal because no government action executed it.[8] The foreign-born population as a whole, legal and illegal together, fell by about 2.2 million between January and July 2025.[9]
Removals
Removals rose while entries fell. ICE counted 319,980 removals in 2025, and 234,236 in the first six months of 2026. DHS puts its own 2025 figure near 622,000 because it also counts removals and returns carried out at the border by CBP. The counts are not in conflict; they cover different things, and neither is a correction of the other.
DHS separately estimates that 1.9 million people left the country on their own since January 2025. That is not a removal. No government action executed it, which is why TRAC and the Deportation Data Project exclude it from removal counts, and why it should never be added to them.
Recommendations
The reduction in illegal entry is the clearest result the current administration has produced, and it is also the least durable. Every measure behind it is an executive one.
- Write the enforcement posture into statute rather than leaving it to proclamation, so that it survives a change of administration.
- Fund detention capacity to the level the current removal rate requires, rather than relying on release with a notice to appear.
- Require an exit-tracking system adequate to measure overstays, which are now the larger channel of new illegal presence.
- Resume publication of the illegal-population estimate. A policy this large should not be running without a measured denominator.
Sources
- 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
- 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
- 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President - the 1952 power used for the travel bans: the President may "suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens"
- 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(4), Public charge ground of inadmissibility - the public-benefits ground cited for the consular Green Card freeze
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Nationwide Encounters - Southwest land border apprehensions by fiscal year and month
- DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics, Estimates of the Illegal Alien Population Residing in the United States: January 2018-January 2022 - 10,990,000 on January 1, 2022, the most recent official estimate
- Pew Research Center, "U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023" - a residual estimate on a different basis from DHS
- TRAC report 767 and DHS press releases - ICE counted 319,980 removals in 2025 and 234,236 in the first six months of 2026; the 1.9 million self-departure figure is a DHS estimate and is excluded from removal counts
- Center for Immigration Studies analysis of the Current Population Survey - the foreign-born population fell about 2.2 million between January and July 2025