Washington D.C. (October 8, 2025) – The Center for Immigration Studies recently reported, based on an analysis of the government’s Current Population Survey, that the immigrant population (legal and illegal) declined by 2.2 million from January to July – including an estimated 1.6 million drop in the number of illegal immigrants.
Some have objected, saying the decline was due, at least in part, to a greater reluctance by immigrants to participate in the survey due to stepped-up enforcement rather than an actual decrease in their numbers.
However, today’s report supports the conclusion that the decline in the foreign-born is real. That conclusion is based on a number of factors: the falloff shows up in multiple months of data, there was no sudden change in response rates to the CPS, a continued willingness of survey participants to answer immigration-related questions, slowing job growth reported by employers, anecdotal evidence, and other data.
“We have never seen a decline in the foreign-born like this before,” said Steven Camarota the report’s lead author and the Center’s Director of Research. “Based on the best evidence available, it appears the decline is real and represents a dramatic reversal of very rapid growth seen over the prior four years.”
Among the findings:
- The decrease in the foreign-born might be dismissed as a statistical anomaly if only one month showed it. But, in fact, multiple months of CPS data show a large decline in the foreign-born after January.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports no sudden increase in the share of households unwilling or unable to participate in the CPS. In fact, in August, survey response rates jumped but there was no increase in immigrants in the survey.
- There has been no increase in the share of respondents to the CPS who were unable or unwilling to answer the specific immigration-related questions in the survey, such as country of birth or citizenship.
- Although the government’s establishment survey of employers does not identify the foreign-born or U.S.-born, it does show a dramatic slowdown in the overall number of workers businesses report having added in recent months.
- The Job Opening and Labor Force Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data shows an increase in people leaving jobs in accommodation and food services, and construction – two industries with large concentrations of immigrants.
- Despite a methodology that is biased toward showing growth in the foreign-born in 2025, the CPS still shows a significant decline so far this year.
- The huge number of stories in major media outlets since the start of this year about immigrants leaving voluntarily, or thinking about doing so, further buttresses our finding that the foreign-born population has declined.
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