Immigration has emerged as one of the most contentious issues in America today, with fierce debates over border security, deportation policies, and the economic and social impacts of migration. While much of the public discourse focuses on enforcement and national security, one critical dimension often receives less attention: the demographic consequences of reduced immigration for communities across the United States. As the Trump administration implements stricter immigration policies and expansive deportation efforts, there has been a noticeable decline in immigrant arrivals and an increase in departures, showing the impacts of how reduced immigration slowing population growth.1

This analysis of the Census Bureau’s newly released annual population estimates contributes to this discussion by examining not only how the recent immigration slowdown has lowered the nation’s overall population growth, but also how it’s led to lower population growth or greater population declines in most states.2 This piece shows national and state demographic shifts over the period from July 2024 to June 2025, along with earlier years, and makes the case that lower immigration levels in the future will have negative impacts on demographic change in most parts of the country—even in states with now small immigrant populations, showing the impacts of reduced immigration slowing population growth.

The new estimates, which revise and extend earlier estimates, also provide an overview of where state populations have shifted over the past several years, with uneven patterns of growth and decline during the COVID-19 pandemic and, later, a population boost from immigration before the recent slowdown. During this period, domestic migration within the U.S. as well as immigration from abroad contributed to demographic shifts across the country. Examining these trends provides insights as to how domestic migration and immigration from abroad will impact future population growth across the nation.

Among the findings:

National population growth declined from 0.96% in 2023-24 to 0.52% in 2024-25. The former year was the highest national growth rate in almost two decades, while the latter, although not as low as the 2020-21 pandemic year growth rate of 0.16%, is among the smallest in the nation’s history.

Net international migration (referred to here as “immigration”) declined from 2.7 million people in 2023-24 to 1.3 million in 2024-25. The slowdown is largely responsible for the nation’s overall decline in population growth between these years. But because natural increase—the excess of births over deaths—remains low, last year’s decreased immigration still accounted for 71% of the nation’s 2024-25 population growth, demonstrating how reduced immigration has slowed population growth.

Read the full article about reduced immigration slowing population growth by William H. Frey at Brookings.