The immigrant population in the US, which had been growing steadily for the past 50 years, has declined ever since US President Donald Trump assumed office for his second term, a new study has revealed.
The Trump administration launched a severe crackdown on immigrants after returning to power.
The Pew Research Center said in its latest study that in January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded.
“In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s,” the study said.
According to the research group, the number dropped to 51.9 million by June.
The study found that 15.4 percent of all US residents were immigrants, down from a recent historic high of 15.8 percent.
It pointed out that in the first 100 days since returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump took 181 executive actions on immigration to curtail the arrival of new immigrants and deport non-citizen immigrants.
Where are US immigrants from?
As of mid-2023 – the latest year for which detailed data is available – more than 11 million US residents were born in Mexico, representing 22 percent of all immigrants nationally.
The second-largest immigrant group was from India (3.2 million, or six percent), followed by China (3 million, or six percent), the Philippines (2.1 million, or four percent), and Cuba (1.7 million, or three percent).
About half of all US immigrants (52 percent, or 26.7 million people) were born in Latin America. In addition to the millions of migrants from Mexico and Cuba, more than a million hail from El Salvador (1.6 million), Guatemala (1.4 million), the Dominican Republic (1.4 million), Colombia (1.2 million), Honduras (1.1 million), and Venezuela (1.1 million).
After Latin America, Asia is the second-largest region of birth for US immigrants. In 2023, around a quarter of all immigrants (27 percent, or nearly 14 million people) were born in Asia.
As of 2023, there were about 11 million immigrants from every other world region combined, accounting for 22 percent of the US foreign-born population: 10 percent were born in Europe, five percent in sub-Saharan Africa, four percent in the Middle East–North Africa region, and two percent in Canada or another North American country (a category that includes Bermuda and some smaller countries).
Mexico was the largest origin country for immigrants who arrived between 2021 and 2023.
“About 11% of immigrants who came to the U.S. during this period were born in Mexico,” the research said.
Rounding out the top five countries of origin for immigrants who arrived during this period were India (eight percent), Venezuela (seven percent), Cuba (six percent), and Colombia (five percent), as per the research.
