Trump has cut legal immigration twice as much as illegal immigration

It's not about illegal immigration. It's about anyone who is foreign.

As expected, President Trump has reduced illegal entries since Inauguration Day in January 2025, but as I predicted, his administration has reduced legal entries far more. Although the full data won’t be in for months, we can assess that the cuts to illegal entries are likely less than half of the total cuts to immigration on a monthly basis. Put differently, the cut to legal entries was 2.5 times as large.

Illegal entries had already fallen before he took office, and while they have fallen further, the declines in legal immigration far surpass the declines in illegal entries. The falloff in illegal immigration continued a prior trend, while the cuts in legal immigration broke the trend of rising legal immigration from 2021 to 2024.

Illegal immigration had already fallen by over 80 percent before Trump.

The number of Border Patrol arrests at the southwest border had fallen by 82 percent from December 2024 to March 2025, but by December 2024, they had already fallen by 81 percent from their peak in December 2023. Of the decline from the peak, 83 percent occurred under President Biden. Prior to Trump taking office, Border Patrol releases had already dropped 96 percent from their peak. Border Patrol releases have declined further under Trump’s second term, but in absolute terms, releases fell far more before he took office. Of the decline in releases from their peak, 96 percent occurred before Trump took office.

Recorded evasions of Border Patrol—known “gotaways”—also fell about 80 percent under President Trump from December 2024 to September 2025 (the most recent data available). But again, by December 2024, evasions had fallen well before Trump took office, falling by 83 percent from their peak in November 2022. President Trump’s administration continued an earlier trend in declines in illegal immigration.

President Trump’s administration has credited the low levels of illegal immigration to an executive order that requires Border Patrol to ignore US asylum law and immediately return any crosser to their home country. In an amicus brief for a case challenging the order, I detailed some reasons to believe that this claim is likely wrong. Besides the fact that illegal immigration was already falling, I note that arrests by the one population exempt from the order—unaccompanied children—fell just as much, and just as quickly, as other arrests. Better explanations for the changes are the fear of the Trump administration and worsening economic conditions here. 

Asylum seekers entering legally fell 99.9 percent.

Every prior administration allowed some asylum seekers to enter legally at the southwest ports of entry because the law explicitly allows them to apply there. The first Trump administration terminated this practice in 2020, and the second Trump administration did so again in January 2025 by eliminating the CBP One scheduling app and banning asylum. As a result, the number of monthly southwest border legal entries by asylum seekers fell 99.9 percent from almost 40,000 in December 2024 to just 26 in February 2025. Other “inadmissibles”—Customs and Border Protection’s broad classification for undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, and others trying to enter legally at ports of entry—also fell in 2025.

Update: President Trump shared this chart.

Refugees entering legally from abroad fell by about 90 percent.

The number of refugees—who enter legally and are granted full protection based on their fears of persecution—has also declined by nearly 90 percent. The president initially suspended the refugee program entirely before restarting it to exclusively admit white South African refugees. The drop was from 12,518 in December 2024 to 1,341 in March 2026. The cap for FY 2026 is just 7,500, so the monthly average for the rest of the year will be 500. As I’ve pointed out previously, most refugees blocked by the administration were persecuted Christians.

Immigrant visas for legal permanent residents fell by about half.

The State Department has not published the number of immigrant visa issuances since September 2025. Since then, President Trump has banned all immigrant visas for nationals of 40 countries, including the Palestinian Territories, starting on January 1, 2026. As I’ve previously described, this affected one in five immigrant visa applicants. The State Department also suspended the Diversity Visa Lottery, effective December 23, 2025. Meanwhile, in a three-sentence press release, the State Department suspended immigrant visa issuances for 75 countries (for a total of 92 banned countries) on January 21, 2026. 

As I’ve detailed before, these bans affected half of all legal immigrants coming from abroad, including half of all spouses and minor children of US citizens, based on 2024 immigrant visa processing. However, it’s possible some of this flow could be replaced with immigrants from other countries, but that did not happen when President Trump enacted a narrower ban on certain categories of immigrants from 19 countries in June. Immigrant visa issuances fell for those nationalities, but rather than other countries increasing to compensate, visas for other nationalities also declined.

Theoretically, the State Department could resolve this issue for the new ban, but we should question how quickly. Moreover, only about a third of the visas are employment– and family-based capped categories that would even theoretically be available for reallocation. If these were reallocated, the immigrant visa cut would be 43 percent from December 2024. This projection also assumes a cautious 1‑percent cut per month to account for the pre-ban downward trend and for all other policies intended to reduce issuances, including the new health-related rules that debuted in November 2025.

Visas for fiancé(e)s and spouses of US citizens fell by 65 percent.

Visas for fiancé(e)s and spouses of US citizens were down by at least half by summer 2025, compared to December 2024. It’s not obvious how seasonal these visas are, but the year-over-year decline was 65 percent when compared with the summer of 2024. The 40-country ban—that started in January 2026—also affects them, excluding about 3,000 visas annually, but because the 75-country immigrant visa ban does not, it’s possible that at least some spouses will eventually try to shift from immigrant visas to K‑1 visas. This will not be possible immediately, as restarting the process would be too costly and time-consuming.

International student visas fell by 40 percent last summer. 

The Trump administration has enacted specific policies targeting international students. In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order that led to the cancellation of F‑1 status and revocation of between 1,700 and 4,500 student visas between January and April. The administration also arrested and placed in detention several students for their political speech. In May, the administration attempted to suspend the right of Harvard to enroll international students at all, but was blocked by the courts. 

In May and early June, the State Department suspended all student visa issuances for three weeks during the peak season. In June, Trump signed an executive order banning student visas from 19 countries, which affected about 10,188 students annually, and in December, he expanded that ban to 40 countries, affecting about 23,000 students per year. Comparing the peak months when students typically get visas, student visas had already fallen by 40 percent, comparing the summer of 2024 to the summer of 2025. As the figure shows, the country ban does not play a massive role. The visa suspension last year and other policy moves mattered much more last year. What will happen this year is still unclear.

H‑1B visas have likely fallen by about 25 percent.

In the average month, H‑1B visa issuances in 2025 were already lower than in 2024. But in September, President Trump signed an executive order mandating a $100,000 fee to petition for an H‑1B worker outside the United States. There were 65,000 H‑1B approvals for workers outside of the US in FY 2024, and there were  219,659 visas issued abroad, implying that about 30 percent of visa issuances are for workers targeted by the ban. 

The State Department hasn’t been totally transparent about the effects of the fee, but in one court filing, it implies it led to an 87 percent decline in petitions for workers outside the United States. H‑1B visas had already declined somewhat by September, so a reasonable estimate would place current H‑1B visa issuances down by about a quarter. Since the fee only applies to new petitions approved after September 2025, it might take a bit longer than projected for the full effect to be felt. The chart below shows H‑1B and H‑1B dependent (H‑4) visa issuances based on this projection.

Legal entry cuts are now likely 2.5 times higher than illegal entries.

When we put together the full picture of legal and illegal immigration, we see that President Trump has indeed cut legal entries far more than illegal entries in absolute terms. The available information suggests that about 2.5 times as many legal entries are being stopped as illegal entries: 132,000 versus 50,000. Among the cuts to immigration, 72 percent were from legal entries, not illegal entries.

This comparison is misleading in favor of illegal entries because most illegal crossers caught by Border Patrol were not being released into the United States in December 2024. It also assumes that 100% of the cuts to the employment– and family-based categories from banned countries result in increases in family– and employment-based categories from other countries. These are just the major visa categories. If we included every category, the cuts would be more severe. It also does not include all the people who are already in the United States and are banned from receiving legal status or converting from temporary to permanent status.

These cuts to legal immigration are harming US citizens seeking to reunite with their spouses, fiancés, children, and other relatives. They are also undermining US prosperity and increasing the US deficit. But they also illustrate the central misconception about the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

It is not about stopping “illegal” immigration. It is a broader assault on all types of immigration. As Americans debate the path forward on immigration, that’s a reality everyone should understand.