U.S. Marine Corps deployed at the southern border in San Diego, reinforce the US-Mexico border wall as pictured from Colonia Libertad in Tijuana, Baja Calif. state, Mexico on Feb. 5, 2025. Credit – Guillermo Arias—AFP/Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s White House has been celebrating reports that 2025 could be the first year in at least 50 years that the United States could have negative net migration.
The Administration promoted a segment on CNN Monday that claimed Trump’s “hawkish” immigration policies will lead to net negative migration, down from a net 2.8 million-person increase in population in 2024.
“The United States is on track to see negative net migration for the first time in at least five decades, according to CNN, as President Donald J. Trump fulfills his promise to end the migrant invasion and deport criminal illegal immigrants from our communities,” the press release reads.
The White House later posted a graphic on X that appeared to claim it had already met that target. The graphic showed a border patrol agent and was emblazoned with the words: “NEGATIVE NET MIGRATION for the First Time in 50 Years” and “Promises made, promises kept.”
Read More: What the Data Reveals About Trump’s Push to Arrest and Deport More Migrants
It did not provide any evidence to back up that claim, and the CNN story originally shared by the White House did not make that claim.
The CNN report was nonetheless celebrated online by Administration officials, including by Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who is often credited with shaping Trump’s hardline immigration policies.
“During the last period in which America was the undisputed global superpower — finically [sic], culturally, militarily — immigration was net negative. All population growth was from family formation,” Miller wrote on X Sunday afternoon.
When asked by TIME if it had achieved negative net migration already, the White House responded by sharing a link to Miller’s tweet.
Here’s what you need to know.
What is negative net migration?
Negative net migration is the term to describe a scenario in which the number of people leaving a country is greater than the number immigrating. In such a situation, population growth is mostly dependent on those being born within the country.
While he didn’t specifically campaign for a second term on achieving negative net migration, Trump promised the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.
“I don’t believe this is sustainable for a country, what’s happening to us, with probably 15 million and maybe as many as 20 million by the time Biden’s out. Twenty million people, many of them from jails, many of them from prisons, many of them from mental institutions,” Trump told TIME in May 2024. TIME had fact-checked this claim, finding that the number of undocumented people in the United States was estimated to be closer to 11 million.
Can the Trump Administration do it?
During the first six months of Trump’s second term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has recorded nearly 150,000 deportations — or an average of more than 800 per day. If those continue at the same pace, the agency should carry out more than 300,000 deportations by the end of the year, which would be the highest annual tally since 2014.
A July 2025 report from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative think tank, estimated that migration levels in 2025 would reach somewhere between negative 525,000 and negative 115,000, “reflecting a dramatic decrease in inflows and somewhat higher outflows.”
This is just one prediction, though. In a separate report, the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco estimated on July 17 that the 2025 net international migration (NIM) numbers would decrease significantly from 2024. They write that NIM levels for 2025 are currently on track to be around 1.0 million—over 1.5 million less than 2024 and 2.5 million less than in 2025—but this still would not substantiate a net negative.
Still, Trump’s aggressive immigration tactics at the border are, undoubtedly, causing a decrease in those entering the United States. The Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco highlights how the overall number of encounters at the border has drastically declined since 2024, and the Migration Policy Institute reports that the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) at the U.S.-Mexico border has reached record lows, not seen since the 1960s, with border patrol claiming just over 6,000 apprehensions in June.
This, combined with Trump’s mass deportation efforts, makes negative net migration a real possibility.
How will it impact the economy?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that foreign-born individuals contributed more than half of the total new workers to the labor force in the years 2022 through 2024. In fact, a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas study in July 2024 found that in the aftermath of the pandemic, immigrant laborers helped boost job growth while keeping inflation down.
Read More: What to Know About the Jobs Report That Led Trump to Fire the Labor Statistics Chief Amid Trade War Fallout
Economists have warned that the sharp drop in immigrants coming into the U.S., and Trump’s aggressive deportation policies, could have detrimental effects on the country’s economy.
The Economic Policy Institute wrote in July that Trump’s deportation efforts will reduce jobs for immigrants and U.S.-born workers alike, as deportations will “[threaten] the ability of employers to generate revenue and pay for business expenses like rent, machinery, and even the labor of any remaining workers.”
A new study from Dallas’ Federal Reserve Bank in 2025 showed that declining immigration is “weighing” on the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). In their simulations on GDP growth, they found that “[r]educed immigration inflows at the border, not deportations, account for most of the negative effect on GDP growth.”
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities also shared a report that immigration benefits the Social Security Trust Fund, and that “plans to drastically cut immigration and increase deportations would significantly worsen Social Security’s financial outlook.” This happens as the Social Security Administration is already feeling the weight of hefty cuts from the Trump Administration.
Contact us at letters@time.com.
