Trump’s Overlooked Effort to Reduce Legal Immigration
A new report counters the false, pessimistic claims of some right-wingers.
The open borders enthusiasts at the Cato Institute made a shocking discovery last week: The Trump administration has apparently cut legal immigration even more than it’s reduced illegal immigration. That seems incredible, considering there is virtually no new illegal immigration.
But Cato’s immigration studies director David J. Bier believes this is the case, claiming illegal entries were already dramatically falling before Trump took office. “The falloff in illegal immigration continued a prior trend, while the cuts in legal immigration broke the trend of rising legal immigration from 2021 to 2024,” Bier claims, noting that “the cut to legal entries was 2.5 times as large.”
The report counters the false impression among certain parts of the right that the administration is doing little about immigration beyond closing the border to illegal aliens. The data shows a completely different picture, revealing a White House trying to reverse legal immigration independent of Congress.
Bier discovered sharp drops in legal immigrants across multiple categories. There has been nearly a 100 percent drop in asylum seekers entering the country legally under Trump. This is due to the admin barring would-be asylum seekers from trying to get in the country through ports of entry, as well as scrapping the Biden administration’s infamous CBP One app.
Refugee entries have fallen by 90 percent thanks to the Trump administration reducing the cap of allowed entries to 7,500. In Biden’s last year, it was set at 125,000. The administration has also greatly reduced the number of nationalities eligible for asylum. The only group practically allowed in as refugees are Afrikaners. Since October, 99.9 percent of refugees welcomed in were white South Africans.
Americans hoping to get visas for their fiances and spouses are also facing trouble. The number of visas granted for this category has fallen by 65 percent. This change is largely attributed to Trump’s ban on visas for 40 different countries.
That ban has also played a role in reducing immigrant visas for permanent residents by nearly half. Other factors include the ban on the Diversity Visa Lottery, stricter vetting standards for getting a green card, and the State Department’s January pause on issuing visas to 75 countries. Previous studies had estimated that the administration would cut legal immigration by as much as 50 percent over its four-year term.
Trump has faced stiff criticism for his apparent endorsement of H-1B and student visas. These comments convinced some of his supporters that the White House has increased immigration in these categories. The data tells a different story.
Cato estimates that the number of H-1B visas has fallen by 25 percent. The decline is due to the admin placing a $100,000 price tag on new visas for these foreign guest workers. The number may decline even more throughout the second Trump term. The administration estimated in a court filing that applications for workers outside the U.S. have fallen by 87 percent since the new rule. The New York Times recently published two articles reporting on how the administration’s changes are impacting H-1B visas. One article reported that many who hold the visa plan to leave the country. The second one lamented that many employers are now unable to afford H-1B workers. “The $100,000 fee has closed the door for us,” one nonprofit executive told the Times.
Student visas witnessed an even bigger drop of 40 percent. This has been due to executive orders that cancelled F-1 status and banned students from the 40 countries under the visa prohibition. The admin has also paused issuing student visas at various times and revoked the visa from thousands of current holders. It has also threatened to ban student visas for Harvard. The massive decline has impacted elite and non-elite schools alike.
On top of all this, the Trump administration made it harder for immigrants to naturalize. Officials expanded the citizenship test, made the assessment of “good moral character” more stringent, and reinstated neighborhood investigations of applications to ensure that the migrant would make a good American.
The admin is poised to further reduce immigration. The Department of Homeland Security wants to restore the first Trump admin’s public charge rule, which prohibited green cards for foreigners who would likely rely on welfare and other government assistance. Immigration advocates fear that this rule will give greater power to Trump officials to deny green cards and have a “chilling effect” on foreign nationals wanting to migrate. Stephen Miller is already pushing for the admin to crack down on legal migrants’ ability to gain public benefits in the wake of the Somali welfare fraud scandal.
The White House wants to make it harder for legal migrants to stay here. It’s made it more difficult for non-citizens to get public housing, commercial driver’s licenses, small business loans, and, potentially, bank accounts. The point is to encourage more self-deportations of both legal and illegal immigrants. It’s already had a noticeable effect. At least 1.1 million migrants have left the country since Trump took office.
The admin also plans to implement new rules to make it difficult for migrants to work in America. Trump officials have proposed restricting the Optional Practical Training program, which allows foreign students to temporarily work in America. The Department of Labor issued a proposed rule last month that would significantly raise the wage levels that employers are required to pay foreign workers in order to discourage them from preferring immigrants over Americans.
This part of the administration doesn’t get much attention, but it could be one of the most lasting achievements of the second Trump term. It’s nearly impossible to get Congress to pass a simple budget plan. It’s unthinkable to imagine a legislative branch defined by gridlock and favorability toward immigration cutting migration. In order to do anything about legal immigration, the White House has to work on its own.
It’s evident the Trump administration is working hard to reduce the numbers any way it can. It’s very possible the Cato Institute will be back with an even more alarming report next year on further declines to legal immigration, especially if the public charge rule and other changes go through. The impression among some factions of the right that the administration is increasing immigration while failing to deport significant numbers of illegal aliens couldn’t be more wrong. Immigration enthusiasts freaking out over the data debunks this misconception.
Trump won in 2024 on promising to reverse the open border policies of Joe Biden. His efforts to curb legal immigration demonstrate his commitment to fulfilling that pledge.
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