Good news to report.
I have been skeptical of the Trump administration’s claim that 1.6 million illegal aliens have self deported in 2025 which is based on a CIS analysis, but it appears that deportations have accelerated over the summer and that self deportation is actually happening to some degree.
“The White House crackdown appears to have driven 1.5 million immigrants out of the country, according to a new tally from Pew Research.
Why it matters: It’s the first time the immigrant population has fallen in decades, a clear win for the Trump administration. It could slow the economy.
Labor shortages in important industries like caregiving, agriculture and meatpacking, already showing up anecdotally, could become a more systemic problem.
By the numbers: In January, the foreign-born population hit an all-time high of 53.3 million, driven by a surge during the Biden administration. Since then, data from the Census Current Population Survey, analyzed by Pew, shows a decline. …”
The Pew Research Center has arrived at a similar number … 1.5 million.
“For the first time in decades, more immigrants are leaving the United States than arriving, a new study finds, an early indication that President Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda is leading people to depart — whether through deportation or by choice.
An analysis of new census data released on Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that between January and June, the foreign-born population in the United States — both lawful and unlawful residents — declined by nearly 1.5 million. In June, the country was home to 51.9 million immigrants, down from 53.3 million six months earlier.
Officials from the Trump administration have applauded the net outflow, asserting that pressures on government services have eased and that job markets have rebounded. And some supporters of the immigration crackdown say it hasn’t gone far enough. …”
Deportations have cranked up in July and August.
“President Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations may be coming closer to reality. Until June, deportations had lagged behind immigration arrests and detentions. By the first week of August, deportations reached nearly 1,500 people per day, according to the latest data, a pace not seen since the Obama administration.
With an infusion of cash from Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill signed in July — an extra $76 billion that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can spend over a little more than four years — the agency appears poised to scale its operations even further.
At least 180,000 people have been deported by ICE under Mr. Trump so far. At the current higher pace, the agency is on track to deport more than 400,000 people in his first year in office, well more than the 271,000 people ICE removed in the year ending last September but still short of the administration’s stated goal of one million deportations a year. …
Mr. Trump may be catching up to President Barack Obama, whom immigrant advocates called the “deporter in chief,” but the nature of his immigration enforcement has been very different. The hundreds of thousands of people removed under Mr. Obama were mostly recent border-crossers, and ICE focused its arrests in the interior of the country on criminals. …”
Activists have been spreading disinformation that Trump deportations lag behind the Obama era. The New York Times article correctly notes that those “deportations” were returns at the border when illegal immigration was high. Illegal immigration at the border has been quelled since February and Trump’s deportations have been removals from the interior mostly of dangerous criminals.
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