This month’s Fellows’ Corner is written by sociologist and demographer Rogelio Sáenz, our 2023 Ernest W. Burgess Fellow.
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The Looming Decline of the U.S. Population
Throughout the history of the U.S., its population has never declined. But now, it is about to. With its mass deportation operation, the Trump administration is eliminating immigration growth as the nation’s most prominent component of population change. As the U.S. population continues to grow older with fewer births and a net loss of immigrants, overall population decline is likely to follow. The consequences of this will be monumental and felt widely across the economy, in educational and religious institutions, and beyond.
There is a long ongoing debate concerning the relationship between population growth and economic growth. Certainly, there are some countries with population decline and favorable economic growth, such as China, Japan, and Taiwan. Nonetheless, I take the position that mass deportation in the U.S. will have major negative impacts on the economy and beyond. Unlike some countries in Europe and East Asia where population decline was telegraphed well before it occurred, the impending decline in the U.S. has been a completely unanticipated, sudden jolt—not in declining births and rising deaths, but in the ouster of workers and consumers. Essentially, we are in uncharted territory.
I contend that dwindling numbers of immigrants mean fewer workers, consumers, students, innovators, congregants, soldiers, friends, and loved ones. The departure of children, many born in this country, signifies the future absence of community members and will result in more school closures and fewer college students in the years to come. On the work front, the job growth rate between January and August 2025 was slightly more than half of that a year ago, with nearly 1.1 million fewer noncitizen workers. The loss of workers creates greater challenges to maintain a Social Security system that will see rising numbers of beneficiaries with fewer workers to support them.
In early June, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed titled “The Economic Drain of Mass Deportation.” The editorial expresses concern over the impact of immigration declines on the GDP and concludes with a quote from the closing remarks of a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas: “There is good reason to be concerned that immigration policies that lead to a reduction in net unauthorized immigration relative to historical trends, all else equal, are likely to significantly lower real GDP growth relative to the counterfactual.” The Dallas Fed findings are consistent with those of an article published by the Brookings Institution and a working paper from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The Demographic Context
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. posted its historically slowest rate of population growth with an average annual growth rate of 0.49 percent between 2016 and 2022, well below the 0.72 percent average annual growth rate that occurred during the Great Depression. The growth rate improved somewhat in 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 when the nation’s population grew by 0.83 percent and 0.98 percent, respectively. In fact, the growth rate of 2023–2024 was on par with the average growth rate between 2000 and 2010.
The latest Census Bureau estimate showed that the U.S. population grew by 3.3 million between 2023 and 2024, with 84 percent of the growth due to net immigration (the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants) and the remainder due to natural increase (the number of births minus the number of deaths). Without net immigration, the U.S. population would have increased by a miniscule 0.15 percent.
If countries with declining fertility, like the U.S., are to grow, it will be primarily through immigration. The U.S. ratio of births to deaths fell from 1.51 in 2013 to 1.16 in 2023, and it is only a matter of time until deaths outnumber births. This has already been the case for the white population since 2016; in 2023, there were 0.77 white births for every 1 white death.
A Declining Immigrant Population
Data on the number of people who have been deported as well as those who have left the country voluntarily are not readily available, making it difficult to track the number of people who are no longer here. Nonetheless, there are a few estimates. The most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, released in late October, show that more than two million people have left the country, “including 1.6 million who have voluntarily self-deported and over 527,000 deportations.” In addition, the Pew Research Center estimates a net decline of 1.4 million foreign-born persons living in the U.S. from January to June 2025.
Estimating U.S. Population Change
The Pew Research Center estimate alongside the U.S. Census Bureau’s components of population change between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024, allow for an estimation of the U.S. population change between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025. To do this, I used Pew’s net immigration estimate of -1.4 million and, in the absence of updated data, the natural change of 500,000 (rounded off from the figure of 518,638) that was in place last year. While the Pew immigration decline figure is for the January–June 2025 period, evidence shows that immigration was already dropping by the second half of 2024. In June 2024, amid his campaign for reelection to the presidency, President Biden initiated a ban on asylum seekers caught along the southern border, which substantially reduced the entry of newcomers into the country between then and the end of the year. The number of border crossings dropped 81 percent between December 2023 and December 2024.
The net outmigration of 1.4 million and the natural increase of 500,000 yield a population decline of 900,000 in the June 2024–June 2025 period. Yet, even if the net outmigration was half as large (-700,000) as the Pew Research Center’s -1.4 million figure, the estimate would suggest a population loss of at least 200,000. Ultimately, the U.S. Census Bureau will produce official estimates of the U.S. population in June 2026.
The Lingering Impact of the Departure of Immigrants
The reduction of immigrants will have lingering impacts on natural change (the difference between the number of births and deaths), the other component of population change. Indeed, we are already seeing a decline among women of childbearing age, who traditionally have higher fertility rates. In addition, because immigrants tend to be relatively young, their absence will result in an even older U.S. population and rising numbers of annual deaths.
The Disproportionate Impact on the Latino Population
Since the onset of the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation, it has become increasingly clear that Latinos are a major target. While data are not available to confirm this speculation, news-media images of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and apprehensions are mainly of Latino individuals. Analysis of data from the 2025 monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) shows a decline of 663,000 noncitizen Latino workers between January and August 2025, although part of the decline may reflect a lower survey response rate among these workers. The disproportionate deportation of Latinos will undoubtedly result in a major slowdown in the high levels of Latino population growth, which accounted for 56 percent of U.S. population growth between 2023 and 2024. The net immigration of Latinos will certainly tank—but so will the number of births, as a substantial share of women giving birth are no longer here.
Conclusions
Many countries around the world, most prominently China, worry about population decline. The U.S. has long been protected from this fate due to its attraction of immigrants, who tend to be relatively young, along with its youthful Latino population. This has changed dramatically with the Trump administration’s mass deportation: We are likely to see an unprecedented decline in the U.S. population, and I believe that this will carry monumental negative consequences throughout all of our institutions. The Trump administration’s hopes for increasing births will take a very long time to produce workers and taxpayers. Immigrants who are being rounded up and deported have long represented a valuable asset to this country, but sadly, many are no longer with us and many others will be gone soon as well.
—Rogelio Sáenz, 2023 Ernest W. Burgess Fellow
The author thanks Jeffrey Passel for providing data and Dudley Poston for his comments on an earlier draft, as well as Tom Kecskemethy and Stacy Liu for editorial suggestions.
