# Immigration and the Labor Supply For most of the 2020s, immigration supplied most of America's new workers. The 2025–26 crackdown reversed that almost overnight. Net immigration fell from about **2.7 million** a year to well under half a million, and by some estimates below zero, for the first time in at least half a century. With the native-born population aging, the labor force has nearly stopped growing. That changes how to read every jobs report. When the labor force barely grows, the economy needs very little hiring to keep the [[Unemployment Rate]] steady. A monthly [[Nonfarm Payrolls]] gain of 30,000, once a recession-level number, can now be enough. Federal Reserve Chair [[Jerome Powell]] called it "a very, very low breakeven rate" and "a consequence of deliberate policy, which is really the changes to immigration" (March 18, 2026). ## How far net migration fell | Estimate | Period | Net international migration | |---|---|---| | Census Bureau | July 2023 – June 2024 | about 2.7 million | | Census Bureau | July 2024 – June 2025 | about 1.3 million (−54%) | | Census Bureau projection | year to July 2026, "if current trends continue" | about 321,000 | | CBO (January 2026) | calendar 2025 | about 410,000 (CBO had projected 2.0 million a year earlier) | | [[Brookings Institution]] / [[American Enterprise Institute]] | calendar 2025 | between −295,000 and −10,000 | | Brookings / AEI | calendar 2026 | between −925,000 and +185,000 | The estimates differ because nobody directly counts people leaving. All of them show the steepest drop in modern records. The Census Bureau's own release said US population growth slowed to 0.5% as migration fell. ## The breakeven number "Breakeven" employment growth is how many jobs the economy must add each month to keep unemployment flat. It tracks labor force growth, and immigration drives most of that: - **Dallas Fed:** about 250,000 a month in 2023, about 10,000 by July 2025, and slightly negative (about −3,000 a month) in late 2025. - **Federal Reserve Board staff (April 2026):** 2026 breakeven could need "less than 10,000 new jobs per month." - **Other estimates** range from roughly zero to about 50,000–87,000, depending on how much immigration is assumed. This is why payroll growth near zero has not yet pushed unemployment sharply higher, and why the [[Sahm Rule]] stays quiet. It also means a strong-looking jobs number now signals more than it used to, and a weak one less. ## The workers who left - [[Pew Research Center]] found the immigrant population hit a record 53.3 million in January 2025, then fell by more than 1 million by June 2025. That was the first decline since the 1960s, though Pew warned that falling survey response may explain part of it. - Pew counted more than 750,000 fewer immigrant workers between January and June 2025. - The data conflict. BLS's annual averages still showed a slightly larger foreign-born labor force in 2025 (19.1% of all workers) than in 2024. The monthly survey data behind Pew's count show steep declines. The gap comes from comparing annual averages with month-to-month changes, and from a January 2026 change in the survey's population weights. ## Enforcement numbers don't agree Deportation counts are themselves contested: - The administration's figures range from about 846,000 to 1.2 million deportations, given within weeks of each other in mid-to-late 2026. A claim of "3 million" refers to all departures, including people who left on their own. - The independent Migration Policy Institute counted about **980,000 deportations** from January 20, 2025, to July 31, 2026, plus record voluntary departures. AP reported that the government's figures "could not immediately be reconciled" with that count. Full enforcement story: [[Trump Second-Term Immigration Enforcement]] and [[Immigration Removal Pipeline]]. ## Where it shows up - **Construction.** In the Associated General Contractors' 2026 survey, 29% of firms said immigration enforcement had affected them, rising to 42% in the South. - **Agriculture.** The Labor Department's own October 2025 rule cutting H-2A guest-worker wage floors said the farm labor shortage was "exacerbated by the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens." A federal court found key parts of that rule unlawful on August 26, 2026, and ordered a replacement by December 30, 2026. See [[Farm Economy]]. - **Local businesses.** The Federal Reserve's March 2026 Beige Book quoted a Minnesota landscaper: "there are not any people to hire." It also reported that legal, foreign-born workers were staying home "due to safety concerns." - **Care work.** About a third of home health aides are immigrants. The end of [[Temporary Protected Status]] for about 350,000 Haitians in 2026 has led some care employers to let workers go. ## High-skill immigration A $100,000 fee on new [[H-1B Visa]] petitions took effect September 21, 2025. A federal judge in Washington ([[Beryl Howell]]) upheld it in December 2025. A federal court in Massachusetts vacated it on June 8, 2026, in a suit brought by 20 states, finding it was effectively a tax only Congress can impose. The First Circuit refused to reinstate it while the appeal continues. The administration extended the proclamation to September 2027, but the fee is not being collected while the court order stands. ## Why it's on the map The immigration crackdown is usually argued as a border and enforcement story. Its economic effect is just as large and gets far less attention: a deliberate shrinking of the workforce, which the Fed now treats as a structural limit on growth. It raises costs in farming, construction and care work while making headline job numbers harder to read. It also feeds the [[Stagflation]] debate, because fewer workers means less room to grow without pushing up wages and prices. ## See also - [[Labor Force Participation Rate]] · [[Nonfarm Payrolls]] · [[Unemployment Rate]] · [[JOLTS]] - [[Trump Second-Term Immigration Enforcement]] · [[Immigration]] · [[Immigration Removal Pipeline]] - [[H-1B Visa]] · [[Temporary Protected Status]] · [[Farm Economy]] - [[Stagflation]] · [[State of the US Economy]]