Policy Tracker

The number of people entering the US illegally has dropped to an estimated 2,000 per month - down from an ~140,000 per month at the 2023 peak. This includes both known "gotaways" detected by sensors but not apprehended and undetected crossings.

145,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions (beyond immigration offenses) have been arrested since January 2025. Of these, approximately 55,000 were convicted of violent crimes: homicide (2,100), sexual assault (5,400), assault (43,000), and robbery (2,700). An additional 90,000 were convicted of serious non-violent offenses including DUI (~30,000), drug trafficking and possession (22,600), weapons charges (6,100), child pornography, and fraud/theft. 227,000 more have pending criminal charges. 7,000+ gang members arrested including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua. 1,538 known or suspected terrorists arrested, 1,534 already removed.

435,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions remain on the ICE non-detained docket, including approximately 105,000 to assault, 15,000 tied to homicide, and 20,000 to sexual assault. DHS claims 622,000 removals and 1.9 million self-deportations - independent tracking (TRAC, Deportation Data Project) puts verified formal removals at approximately 290,000-350,000. Brookings estimates 210,000-405,000 voluntary departures.

Annual legal permanent resident admissions peaked at 1.36 million in 2024, the highest level on record. The 2026 projection is about 575,000 - a cut of roughly 58% in two years. This is the largest single-administration reduction in legal admissions since the Immigration Act of 1924 and a substantive policy win, achieved entirely through executive action. In absolute terms the cut is approximately 785,000 fewer admissions per year, or roughly 3.1 million fewer admissions across a four-year administration than the 2024 peak would have produced. The mechanism is a three-layer country-level restriction structure: a full travel ban covering 19 nations, a partial ban covering 19 more, and a consular green-card freeze covering nationals of 75 additional countries. The Center for Assimilation supports the volume cut and the concentration on failed states, hostile regimes, and countries that refuse the return of removed nationals.

The remaining work is structural. The entire reduction rests on Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and the public-charge authority, both of which can be reinterpreted or set aside by a successor administration on day one - exactly as President Biden revoked the first-term Trump travel ban with Executive Order 13993 on January 20, 2021. The Immigration Act of 1990, which authorizes the higher pre-restriction admission level (and contains the uncapped immediate-relative and refugee categories), has not been amended.

Recommendation: Pair the current administrative cut with a statutory replacement for the 1990 Act, lowering the annual cap to roughly 200,000. That is an 80% reduction from the baseline, consistent with the 1924-1965 admissions average. Eliminate the Diversity Visa Lottery and narrow family-based admissions to spouses and minor children. This is the only mechanism that would convert a single-administration achievement into a multi-decade reduction comparable to the 41 years the 1924 Act held.

The H-1B visa was created by the Immigration Act of 1990 with an initial cap of 65,000, later expanded to 85,000. It replaced the H-1 program, which had operated since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 with a "distinguished merit and ability" standard and admitted roughly 20,000-65,000 workers per year across all industries before 1990. The 1990 Act lowered the standard to "specialty occupation" (any role requiring a bachelor's degree) and the inflow expanded sharply. The Optional Practical Training program adds approximately 230,000 work authorizations annually for international students completing US degrees. Together the two programs supply approximately 600,000 annual work authorizations to US employers without the wage-bidding constraints that would apply if the same demand were met through the domestic labor pool.

The September 2025 $100,000 sponsor fee and February 2026 wage-weighted lottery are partial executive measures that reduce inflow at the margin. Neither addresses the structural problem.

Recommendation: Full statutory repeal of the H-1B program, elimination of OPT, and revocation of H-1B status for any current holder with less than five years of US residence. The replacement should restore the H-1 program (the 1952 "distinguished merit and ability" standard, which admitted roughly 20,000-65,000 workers per year across all industries before 1990) with a tighter cap below 10,000 annual admissions and a salary floor above the 95th percentile of the relevant US occupation. The five-year threshold preserves equity for long-term residents while removing the recent inflow that produces the largest current wage-suppression and metro-housing-cost effect. Statutory repeal is the only intervention that aligns the labor pipeline with the wage-bidding conditions that the citizens of the country authorize.

This section is harder to measure because there is no fixed target number - the goal is straightforward: if immigration fraud is found, it should lead to denaturalization. The challenge is building the legal pipeline to make that happen at scale.

The detection side is working: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that adjudicates green cards and citizenship, has completed 19,300 fraud cases with a 65% fraud confirmation rate, made 33,000+ referrals (138% increase), and conducted 6,500+ site visits and 19,500 social media checks. Operation Twin Shield examined 1,000+ cases in Minneapolis-St. Paul, finding fraud or security concerns in 44% of interviews. USCIS has flagged 182 confirmed national security risks and issued a record 196,000 notices to appear in 2025.

But actual denaturalization outcomes are barely started: only 13 cases brought and 8 won in 2025, despite a target of 2,400 referrals per year (100-200/month). Operation Janus is the government program that hunts for people who became citizens despite having been ordered deported under a different name. It began in 2008 after a border officer found 206 immigrants who had final deportation orders but had reused new identities to win green cards and citizenship. USCIS later discovered roughly 315,000 naturalization files where the fingerprints were never digitized or did not match - meaning the criminal-background check behind those citizenships was never verified. That backlog is the pool Janus is now working through. The DOJ issued a June 2025 memo directing attorneys to "maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings," but the legal process is slow: stripping citizenship requires the government to win a separate federal lawsuit for each person.

Documented fraud patterns include: Feeding Our Future ($350M+, 65 convicted of 79 charged, founder Aimee Bock sentenced to 41 years 8 months), Chinese marriage fraud rings (11 charged in Navy sham marriage scheme), Indian H-1B visa fraud (Infosys $34M settlement), and Cuban asylum fraud ($18M smuggling ring, 12 indicted).

The U.S. has imposed a full travel ban on 19 countries (all visa types blocked): Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Chad, Myanmar, Eritrea, Haiti, South Sudan, Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Sierra Leone, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Laos. An additional 19 countries face partial restrictions (immigrant visas + tourist/student visas blocked): Nigeria, Tanzania, Cuba, Venezuela, Mauritania, Turkmenistan, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Benin, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Antigua and Barbuda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Separately, 75 countries have had immigrant visa (green card) processing frozen indefinitely as of January 2026 - since a green card is the only path to U.S. citizenship, this effectively blocks permanent immigration from these nations.

Recommendation: Elevate 25 countries to the full travel ban based on failed-state status, poor human rights records, and security risks: Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Guinea, Mauritania, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Algeria, Lebanon, Egypt, Uganda, Rwanda, Liberia, Tunisia, Jordan, Nepal, and Morocco. Many of these are already on the 75-country visa freeze or partial travel ban but should face full restrictions.

On January 20, 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14160 to end automatic birthright citizenship for children born to parents who are neither citizens nor permanent residents. Multiple federal courts immediately blocked it, but the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June 2025 (Trump v. CASA) to limit nationwide injunctions - allowing partial enforcement. The Court agreed in December 2025 to hear the full constitutional question, with oral arguments in April 2026 and a ruling expected by June-July 2026.

Separately, the administration has cracked down on birth tourism - the practice of traveling to the U.S. specifically to give birth and obtain citizenship for the child. The State Department now rejects tourist visas made primarily for birthing purposes, and criminal prosecutions have begun (a California "USA Happy Baby" operator was sentenced to 41 months for helping 100+ Chinese women give birth in the U.S.). Senator Blackburn introduced the Ban Birth Tourism Act (S. 1812) in May 2025. An estimated 33,000 babies are born annually to birth tourists, with the largest numbers from China, Russia, Nigeria, and Turkey.

Recommendation: End automatic citizenship for any child whose parents are neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents at the time of birth. An executive order alone cannot survive the 14th Amendment challenge. The durable fix is a statute - the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025 (S. 304 / H.R. 569) - limiting citizenship to children with at least one parent who is a citizen, national, or lawful permanent resident, paired with the State Department crackdown on birth tourism.

Foreign citizens and foreign governments own about 45.8 million acres of American farmland - roughly 3.4% of all privately-owned farmland in the country. They also buy an average of about 100,000 existing U.S. homes a year, worth around $56 billion, based on the 2020-2024 average tracked by the National Association of Realtors.

The 100,000 buyers split into two groups, both of them non-citizens. A little over half live in the United States - recent immigrants who have been here less than two years, or people on temporary visas such as H-1B work visas and student visas. These buyers mostly purchase a single-family house in the suburbs to live in. The rest live abroad and never move here. They buy U.S. homes as vacation properties or rental investments, and most pay all cash. Neither group has to be a citizen, and the federal government sets no requirement that a buyer hold a green card or live in the country.

Washington does nothing to stop any of it. The only federal law on foreign farmland, passed in 1978, just requires foreign owners to report what they own - it bans no purchase. Twenty-eight states have written their own restrictions, most aimed at China and other hostile governments.

Recommendation: Lawful permanent resident status (green card) should be the minimum to purchase any U.S. real estate. Foreign-state entities and sovereign wealth funds should be barred entirely. Existing foreign-owned property should be divested within one year of legislative enactment. A separate Center article will cover the full mechanism and constitutional questions.