Key Takeaways

President Donald Trump's crackdown on the border has cut immigration to half its pre-pandemic rate, according to a new analysis.

The U.S. is on pace to receive 500,000 immigrants in 2025, down from a typical rate of 1 million per year before the pandemic and a sharp decline from the recent peak of immigration in late 2023 when people were entering the country at a rate of 3.5 million-4 million per year, Elsie Peng, U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a commentary Tuesday.

Reducing immigration was a major focus of President Donald Trump's run for president, and several actions shortly after his inauguration were aimed at tightening security at the border. He also promised to deport immigrants already in the country, but Goldman didn't see a major uptick in deportations in the data as of February. Instead, the decline in net immigration was driven by a "collapse" of refugees and other immigrants without visas or green cards to an annualized rate of 200,000 from 1.4 million.

The decrease in immigration could have major effects on the economy, especially if significant numbers of immigrants already in the country without authorization stop working for fear of being deported, as anecdotal reports have suggested.

Certain industries, including agriculture and homebuilding , heavily rely on immigrant labor and may face slowdowns and cost increases. Forecasters at Goldman estimate the Gross Domestic Product, a measure of economic output, will grow 0.1 percentage point slower this year than if 1 million immigrants per year were still coming in.

Read the original article on Investopedia