The Trump administration’s relentless focus on illegal border crossings has come at a steep cost to legal immigration, with fresh data revealing a dramatic 27% drop in approvals in 2025. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services greenlit 8.3 million applications last year, down from 11.4 million in 2024. The biggest hits landed on employment-based petitions, which fell 26%, and humanitarian cases, which plunged 69%. Green card approvals slid 16%, though family-based petitions rose 8% and naturalization held steady.
Experts warn the fallout could ripple through the economy for years. “Immigrants aren’t just workers; they create jobs by consuming goods and services,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute. The State Department hasn’t released full 2025 visa data, but numbers through September show international student visas dropped 31% from the same period in 2024. “If you cut off that pathway, you could see the impact for years to come,” Gelatt added.
Humanitarian admissions faced a near-total shutdown. In fiscal 2024, over 100,000 people entered through this route, but Trump’s second term slashed the cap to 7,500 for fiscal 2026, the lowest in half a century. So far, all but three of those admitted were white South Africans, according to Mother Jones.
The decline in legal migration is already reshaping U.S. cities. After COVID-19, many big cities reversed population losses, but 2025 marked another slowdown, driven by a drop in international migration. “When the workforce shrinks, economic growth stalls, production falls, and costs rise for consumers,” said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. Immigrants also prop up Social Security, even if most won’t collect benefits. The trust fund, supporting over 75 million Americans, is projected to run dry in 2032.
Trump’s administration enacted a slew of restrictions: student visa cancellations, cuts to temporary protected status for migrants from dangerous countries, a $100,000 fee for H-1B work visas, and a travel ban on dozens of nations. Public backlash and court challenges reversed some measures. Student visas were reinstated after over 100 lawsuits, and a judge struck down the H-1B fee in June. Another judge halted policies that “threw the lives of countless immigrants into indeterminate legal limbo” by pausing asylum applications and work permits under the travel ban.
But even temporary changes leave scars. “The damage is done,” said Jeff Joseph, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “You send a memo telling field offices how to exercise discretion, and it’s hard to turn that message off.” USCIS did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump campaigned on border control but defended foreign workers. Border Patrol encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border continued to drop in his second term, while detention of immigrants with no criminal record surged, per USA TODAY’s tracker. “They did that efficiently, but I don’t think people voted for an attack on the legal immigration system,” Joseph said.
An earlier analysis by Bier found legal immigration declined 2.5 times faster than illegal entries in the first three quarters of 2024. “A new administration with a new ideology can’t undo all the concerns people have about coming here,” Bier said. USCIS, which processes employment, green card, and citizenship applications, was hit by workforce cuts in early 2025, including 50 application processors, CBS reported. The application backlog grew 48% higher than at the end of Joe Biden’s term, and processing times rose across all categories. The frontlog of unopened applications peaked at nearly 250,000 in 2025, up from zero before Trump’s second term. “Each envelope contains a fee that funds USCIS operations,” Gelatt said. “Not opening them suggests an agency that’s underperforming.” USCIS relies on filing fees for 96% of its budget.
“You’re setting up a situation where people don’t want to come to the U.S. because the government is unreliable,” Bier said. “The United States’ reputation is really taking a blow.”
