After this post was originally published by the Cato Institute, the White House posted the first chart, and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin endorsed the policy.
During his campaign in 2016, President Trump repeatedly proposed an outright ban on Muslims entering the United States. He then claimed that this policy idea morphed into the travel ban to avoid potential constitutional problems. During his 2024 campaign, he said he would bring back an even stricter ban than the one in his first term. He has succeeded.
Historic Cuts to Legal Immigration
Data from the State Department through February 2026 show that the Trump administration has cut legal immigration by nationals of 45 majority-Muslim countries by 96 percent since December 2024. Monthly immigrant visa issuances and permanent lawful refugee admissions fell from 21,096 in December 2024 to 808 in February 2026.
The graph below shows that this outcome was not the result of seasonal trends since the drop from February 2024 was nearly as significant. Immigrant visas—primarily for family members of US citizens—were down 95 percent. Meanwhile, refugee resettlement—immigrants admitted lawfully based on threats of persecution abroad—was completely ended for majority-Muslim countries, dropping from 5,157 admissions in December 2024 to 0 admissions in February 2026.
The table below shows that this decline has affected nearly every majority-Muslim nationality in the world. Afghans accounted for fully one in four (27 percent) of all the drop for majority-Muslim countries, going from 5,563 legal immigrants and refugees in December 2024 to just 9 in February 2026—a 99.8 percent decline. Pakistanis followed with a drop of 2,963, or 97.9 percent.
Only three countries—Qatar, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates—saw increases during this period. Notably, Turkey had the smallest decline of just 8 percent.
If the current pace continues, the fiscal year 2026 (which started in October) would see the fewest immigrants and refugees from majority-Muslim countries in at least 30 years. If the February 2026 levels continue for the rest of the fiscal year (and they have for refugees, but we don’t yet have data on immigrant visa issuances), then only about 40,000 immigrants and refugees from these countries will have immigrated that year. This would be down nearly 80 percent from 2024 and even about 30 percent lower than 2020, when the first Trump administration used the pandemic as an excuse to cut off legal immigration. If the 2024 level had continued, another 180,000 immigrants and refugees could have come legally in 2025 and 2026.
It is worth noting that although these are majority-Muslim countries, many of the immigrants affected are Christians, Jews, or other religions. We don’t have great numbers for the population overall, but among refugees, from 2002 to 2024, 28 percent of refugees from the 45 majority-Muslim countries were not Muslim—either Christian, Jewish, or other groups—and 21 percent were Christian. In 2025, the State Department ceased reporting on the religious makeup of refugees.
About half of the legal immigrants blocked by the new immigration restrictions are close family members of US citizens and legal permanent residents. About 3,500 spouses and minor children of US citizens are being blocked each month by the policies. But no category has escaped the restrictions. Even employment-based immigrant visas were reduced by 41 percent from December 2024 to February 2026.
The Legal Origins of These Cuts
The causes of these drastic restrictions on legal immigration are
a presidential proclamation that suspended refugee admissions for 120 days starting January 2025;
a presidential determination allocating FY 2026 refugee admissions to South Africans with only minor exceptions (FY 2027’s version is coming);
a presidential proclamation that indefinitely bars entry to the United States by immigrants from 40 countries, of which 10 are majority-Muslim (since December 2025);
a memorandum by USCIS that applies the 40-country entry ban to US citizen petitioners who are inside the United States (since December 2025);
a State Department “immigrant visa pause” for 75 countries announced on their website, of which 28 are majority-Muslim (since January 2026);
a State Department suspension of the diversity visa lottery program (since December 2025); and
a State Department immigrant visa interview freeze (since August 2026).
As a result of the 75-country visa suspension and the 40-country entry ban, 34 of the 45 majority-Muslim countries were specifically barred. The eleven countries not subject to a specific entry ban or visa suspension are Bahrain, Brunei, Djibouti, Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Nonetheless, as previously shown, seven of these eleven still saw immigrant visa issuances decline—six by 50 percent or more.
Over the summer, courts have found several of these policies to be illegal. In response, the State Department implemented an immigrant visa interview freeze in August to thwart the orders, but the administration has failed to comply with any of them. Now, courts are considering whether to hold the administration in contempt.
Although these policies have affected immigrants from most countries in the world, the cuts for majority-Muslim countries have been far more severe, falling 96 percent compared to 36 percent for other countries. They accounted for 33 percent of legal immigration in December 2024 but 57 percent of the total reduction in legal immigration in February 2026.
Effects of These New Immigration Cuts
The Trump administration has provided various excuses for these blanket restrictions, including security and welfare concerns. The entry ban on 40 countries (including 10 majority Muslim countries) was justified based on security, but only two of the ten majority Muslim countries on that list have ever carried out a deadly terrorist attack in the United States. Even if we look at all majority-Muslim countries, not a single national from most of these countries has ever conducted a deadly terrorist attack in the United States, and based on the 2024 American Community Survey (ACS), five-year sample, they are 84 percent less likely to commit crimes for which they are incarcerated in the United States.
Immigrants from these countries are not an economic drain. For one thing, immigrants from these countries are concentrated in their working years, so they are more likely to be working, with 57 percent being employed versus only 46 percent for the US-born. This implies that the ban has likely already kept out about 103,000 workers.
They are also much more highly educated than the US-born. According to the ACS, nearly half of immigrants from these countries held a bachelor’s degree or higher, 14 percentage points higher than US-born individuals. More than one in five (22 percent) had an advanced degree—8.5 percentage points higher than the US-born.
Our analysis of the immigrants’ recent effects on government budgets showed that immigrants overall reduced federal, state, and local deficits by $14.5 trillion from 1994 to 2023, and $11.7 trillion of those savings came from college graduates. Using that same model for only majority-Muslim countries shows that these immigrants reduced federal, state, and local deficits collectively by $1.1 trillion in 2024 dollars over 30 years. Moreover, their net fiscal effect during this time was much higher on a per-capita basis than the average immigrant: $510,391 versus $385,060 for the average immigrant from other countries.
Not surprisingly, given their high levels of education, immigrants from majority-Muslim countries are overrepresented in many high-skilled fields, including health care, engineering, science, education, and computer-related jobs. Based on this distribution and their employment rate, the block on legal immigration from these countries has likely already stopped about 13,000 immigrants in health care and health care support fields.
Conclusion
The Trump administration has slashed legal immigration across the board, actually reducing legal immigration far more in absolute terms than illegal immigration. But the administration has shown particular contempt for immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. In December 2025, speaking about Somalis and unnamed “other countries,” President Trump said, “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
Of course, there are immigrants who don’t work and commit crimes. But they are the minority. The vast majority of immigrants—including those from majority-Muslim countries—want to contribute to the United States, and they have contributed to it. In 1965, Congress explicitly prohibited discrimination based on national origin in issuing immigrant visas, but it should go further to protect Americans’ right to associate freely with people born in other countries, regardless of their countries of origin.
The terrible thing about this policy is that this not just targets the potential immigrants but their family members in USA. It is hard to believe why these affected groups would be on GOP's side in various elections.
People including Muslims and other groups are fine when people with specific crimes are targeted for enforcement. But when you are targeting them for their identity they are going to gang up under he banner of that identity against you.
We will see in midterms.
There are some on the right that say Trump hasn’t don’t anything to stop immigration, but things like this give me hope.