Where American Immigration Policy Stands in 2026

Legal admissions to the United States peaked at 1.36 million in 2024, the highest figure on record. Two years later, the 2026 projection is around 575,000 entries. That is a reduction of more than half, achieved without a single amendment to the Immigration Act of 1990 and without a single vote in Congress.

The cut is the largest annual reduction (in both absolute and relative terms) in legal admissions since the Immigration Act of 1924. It is also the largest one-administration reduction without statutory change in American history. The instruments are 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.

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, all visa categories - immigrant, tourist, business, student - are suspended. The list groups into three categories.

Failed states unable to verify the identity of travelers:

1. Somalia
2. Syria
3. Yemen
4. Libya
5. South Sudan
6. Mali
7. Burkina Faso
8. Niger
9. Sierra Leone
10. Republic of the Congo
11. Equatorial Guinea

State sponsors of terrorism / hostile regimes:

12. Iran
13. North Korea

Countries that refuse the return of removed nationals:

14. Chad
15. Myanmar
16. Eritrea
17. Haiti
18. Sudan
19. Laos

The list was expanded in December 2025 following 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.

1. Nigeria
2. Tanzania
3. Cuba
4. Venezuela
5. Mauritania
6. Turkmenistan
7. Senegal
8. Togo
9. Angola
10. Benin
11. Burundi
12. Côte d'Ivoire
13. Dominica
14. Gabon
15. The Gambia
16. Malawi
17. Antigua and Barbuda
18. Zambia
19. Zimbabwe

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. 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, 22 were already restricted by the full or partial travel ban above - for them, the freeze adds nothing new. For the remaining 53 countries, however, the green-card freeze is the first U.S. immigration restriction they have faced. Those 53 are:

1. Afghanistan
2. Albania
3. Algeria
4. Armenia
5. Azerbaijan
6. Bahamas
7. Bangladesh
8. Barbados
9. Belarus
10. Belize
11. Bhutan
12. Bosnia and Herzegovina
13. Brazil
14. Cambodia
15. Cameroon
16. Cape Verde
17. Colombia
18. Democratic Republic of the Congo
19. Egypt
20. Ethiopia
21. Fiji
22. Georgia
23. Ghana
24. Grenada
25. Guatemala
26. Guinea
27. Iraq
28. Jamaica
29. Jordan
30. Kazakhstan
31. Kosovo
32. Kuwait
33. Kyrgyz Republic
34. Lebanon
35. Liberia
36. Moldova
37. Mongolia
38. Montenegro
39. Morocco
40. Nepal
41. Nicaragua
42. North Macedonia
43. Pakistan
44. Russia
45. Rwanda
46. Saint Kitts and Nevis
47. Saint Lucia
48. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
49. Thailand
50. Tunisia
51. Uganda
52. Uruguay
53. Uzbekistan

Together, the three measures cover 91 distinct countries with some level of restriction.

Why Legislative Backing Is the Next Step

Every restriction above rests on executive authority. Section 212(f) is a presidential discretion. The public-charge authority is a State Department interpretation. The Trump administration has used both instruments effectively. There are roughly two and a half years remaining in the current term, and a successor in the same governing coalition - Vance, Rubio, or another - would extend the same policy posture through 2032 at the outside. The cut is therefore durable on its current footing for the foreseeable political cycle.

What it lacks is statutory permanence. The 1924 Immigration Act remains the comparison point: 81% reduction, 41 years in force, repealed only by an act of Congress in 1965 (and with significant changes occuring another 25 years later, with the 1990 Immigration Act). The country-level distribution and the annual volume were determined by statute, not proclamation, and they held across both parties' presidencies for four decades. Nothing in current executive authority produces that horizon.

The 1990 Immigration Act remains in full force. It authorizes about 1 million annual admissions in the family, employment, and diversity-lottery categories, plus an uncapped immediate-relatives category and a separately set refugee ceiling. Republicans hold both chambers of Congress as of mid-2026 and have not introduced a bill to lower its caps, eliminate the Diversity Visa lottery, or narrow the family-preference system. The administrative cut is real and substantial. The statutory framework that produced the pre-2025 levels remains untouched. Converting the current executive achievement into legislation is the ideal next step, not because the current cut is fragile, but because durable American immigration policy has historically been written into statute.

The Statutory Replacement

A statute replacing the 1990 Act would lock the current reduction into law and free immigration policy from depending on which party holds the executive branch. The Center for Assimilation's policy position has four components.

Annual legal admissions should be reduced to approximately 200,000, an 80% cut from the pre-restriction baseline, matching the scale of the 1924 reduction and restoring an absorption rate that fixed-supply infrastructure - housing, schools, municipal services - can accommodate.

The Diversity Visa lottery should be eliminated. Random selection of 55,000 admissions per year, with no skills, language, or assimilation criteria, is incompatible with selective, sustainable immigration.

Family-based immigration should be capped at 100,000 annually, with the immediate-relatives category limited to spouses and minor children. Sponsorship eligibility for parents, adult siblings, and adult children should end.

The H-1B program should be replaced with a narrowly drawn exceptional-talent visa with a numerical cap below 10,000 annual admissions and a salary floor above the 95th percentile of the relevant U.S. occupation. The Optional Practical Training program should be eliminated.

A statute on these terms would set the annual ceiling, the qualifying criteria, and the country distribution by Congress, on the same model that held from 1924 to 1965. The current executive cut is real, substantial, and likely to hold through this presidency and the next. Codifying it is what turns a presidential program into long-term American immigration policy.

Sources

1. DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics, Lawful Permanent Residents Annual Flow Report - 2023 baseline (1.17M) and 2024 figures (1.36M)
2. U.S. Department of State, Immigrant Visa Processing Updates for Nationalities at High Risk of Public Benefits Usage - The 75-country consular freeze list
3. Immigration Act of 1990, Public Law 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978 - Governing statute for legal immigration
4. Congressional Research Service, IN12631, "Expanded Travel Ban Effective January 2026" - Full and partial travel ban scope
5. Cato Institute, "New Ban Hits Half of Legal Immigrants - Even Citizens' Spouses and Kids" - Freeze impact estimate (~324,000 issuances/year)
6. Congressional Budget Office, The Demographic Outlook Update, 2025-2055 - 2026 net immigration projection
7. Niskanen Center, Legal Immigration Status Update, January 2026 - Independent projection of 2026 admissions
8. 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)
9. 8 U.S.C. § 1151, Worldwide level of immigration - Statutory admission ceilings
10. 8 U.S.C. § 1153, Allocation of immigrant visas - Family and employment preference categories