Trump Has Cut Legal Immigration More Than Illegal Immigration

As expected, President Trump has reduced illegal entries since Inauguration Day in January 2025, but as I predicted, his administration has reduced legal entries far more. Although the full data won’t be in for months, we can assess that the cuts to illegal entries are likely less than half of the total cuts to immigration on a monthly basis. Put differently, the cut to legal entries was 2.5 times as large.

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The number of Border Patrol arrests at the southwest border had fallen by 82 percent from December 2024 to March 2025, but by December 2024, they had already fallen by 81 percent from their peak in December 2023. Of the decline from the peak, 83 percent occurred under President Biden. Prior to Trump taking office, Border Patrol releases had already dropped 96 percent from their peak. Border Patrol releases have declined further under Trump’s second term, but in absolute terms, releases fell far more before he took office. Of the decline in releases from their peak, 96 percent occurred before Trump took office.

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Every prior administration allowed some asylum seekers to enter legally at the southwest ports of entry. The first Trump administration terminated this practice in 2020, and the second Trump administration did so again in January 2025 by eliminating the CBP One scheduling app and banning asylum. As a result, the number of monthly southwest border legal entries by asylum seekers fell 99.9 percent from almost 40,000 in December 2024 to just 26 in February 2025. Other “inadmissibles”—Customs and Border Protection’s broad classification for undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, and others trying to enter legally at ports of entry—also fell in 2025.

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The number of refugees—who enter legally and are granted full protection based on their fears of persecution—has also declined by nearly 90 percent. The president initially suspended the refugee program entirely before restarting it to exclusively admit white South African refugees. The drop was from 12,518 in December 2024 to 1,341 in March 2026. The cap for FY 2026 is just 7,500, so the monthly average for the rest of the year will be 500. As I’ve pointed out previously, most refugees blocked by the administration were persecuted Christians.

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The State Department has not published the number of immigrant visa issuances since September 2025. Since then, President Trump has banned all immigrant visas for nationals of 40 countries, including the Palestinian Territories, starting on January 1, 2026. As I’ve previously described, this affected one in five immigrant visa applicants. The State Department also suspended the Diversity Visa Lottery, effective December 23, 2025. Meanwhile, in a three-sentence press release, the State Department suspended immigrant visa issuances for 75 countries (for a total of 92 banned countries) on January 21, 2026.

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Visas for fiancé(e)s and spouses of US citizens were down by at least half by summer 2025, compared to December 2024. It’s not obvious how seasonal these visas are, but the year-over-year decline was 65 percent when compared with the summer of 2024. The 40-country ban—that started in January 2026—also affects them, excluding about 3,000 visas annually, but because the 75-country immigrant visa ban does not, it’s possible that at least some spouses will eventually try to shift from immigrant visas to K‑1 visas. This will not be possible immediately, as restarting the process would be too costly and time-consuming.

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The Trump administration has enacted specific policies targeting international students. In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order that led to the cancellation of F‑1 status and revocation of between 1,700 and 4,500 student visas between January and April. The administration also arrested and placed in detention several students for their political speech. In May, the administration attempted to suspend the right of Harvard to enroll international students at all, but was blocked by the courts.

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In the average month, H‑1B visa issuances in 2025 were already lower than in 2024. But in September, President Trump signed an executive order mandating a $100,000 fee to petition for an H‑1B worker outside the United States. There were 65,000 H‑1B approvals for workers outside of the US in FY 2024, and there were  219,659 visas issued abroad, implying that about 30 percent of visa issuances are for workers targeted by the ban.

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When we put together the full picture of legal and illegal immigration, we see that President Trump has indeed cut legal entries far more than illegal entries in absolute terms. The available information suggests that about 2.5 times as many legal entries are being stopped as illegal entries: 132,000 versus 50,000. Among the cuts to immigration, 72 percent were from legal entries, not illegal entries.

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