Immigration has decreased, but no evidence that American employees are better off

A decrease in the workers born abroad did not improve the fortunes of employees born in the US, in contrast to the promises of Trump officials. The deputy Staff Chef of the White House, Stephen Miller, has praised the Immigration Act of 1924, which prevented Jews and many other Europeans to emigrate to America before the rise of fascism, if the type of immigration approach to American employees would yield. However, our employees did not better finish the significant decrease in employees born abroad in 2025 and has contributed to concerns about a stagnating economy instead.

Immigration policy has led to less -born employees born abroad

The Trump administration has again passed a disappointing American job report when the Bureau or Labor Statistics announced on 5 September 2025 that the total employment for non -land builder in August was only 22,000. The Total seasonal workforce has increased by only 34,000 since January 2025 and has fallen by 357,000 since the peak in April 2025.

“The loss of immigrant workers and immigrant consumers is an important cause of slow job growth,” said labor economist Mark Regets, a senior fellow at the National Foundation for American Policy, in an interview. “Immigrants create both the demand for the goods and services produced by employees born in the US and work next to them in ways that increase productivity for both groups.”

The number of employees born abroad in the American labor force decreased by 1.1 million between January and August 2025, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis from Bureau or Labor Statistics data. The number of employees born abroad fell by 1.5 million from a peak in March 2025.

The decrease in employees born abroad may not only be measured against an assumption of zero growth. NFAP noted that from 2014 to 2024 the average annual growth in the labor force born abroad was 652,000 a year. For more than eight months that would be the same as an increase of more than 400,000. In other words, perhaps about 400,000 more people who were born abroad were expected in the American labor force in August 2025 instead of 1.1 million less.

Although Stephen Miller and other proponents of less immigration have argued that less -born employees in the American labor force would translate into improving the life of employees born in the US, there is no evidence that employees born in the US are better off. The unemployment rate among American employees has risen from 4.3% to 4.6% between January and August 2025. The seasonal adapted American unemployment rate rose from July to August 2025.

It also does not seem that American employees in large numbers enter the American labor force as employees born abroad leave. While the Labor participation The rate for the US -born age and older is slightly higher since January, it has fallen from 61.7% in August 2024 to 61.6% in August 2025. NFAP discovered that the investigated of each age group separately investigates, the professional population born in the US is already on or almost all time. The only exception is for people born in the US under the age of 25, but such people are a record high once you are at school.

“The decline of the part of the workforce born abroad is due to policy on deportation and actions that previously remove authorized employees from the legal staff file, such as the termination of humanitarian conditional exemption programs and temporary protected status, as well as the policy on legal immigration,” according to the NEW new refugee-to-aposting-of-aanalaatan. “These actions may also have influenced or discouraged immigrants that are not directly influenced by the policy changes.”

Immigration research shows that born employees probably do not benefit from fewer immigrants in the US

A large amount of research believes it is unlikely that a decrease in employees born abroad will yield economic profit for American employees. The research investigated previous episodes of lower legal immigration and increased deportations.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 Pandemie, the Trump government issued a proclamation that blocked the entry of H-1B, H-2B, L-1 and most J-1 temporary visa holders until December 31, 2020. Miller and others insured Americans when the measure would help American employees. That turned out not to be true.

In an NFAP studyUniversity of North Florida Economics Professor Madeline Zavodny concluded that the policy of COVID-19 Pandemie and Trump Administration, including the proclamation, H-1-VISA has reduced, but did not help us. “The drop in the H-2B program-program did not increase the chances of the labor market for American employees, but she deteriorated, if there is something.”

In 2018, Zavodny looked at unemployment and professional participation percentages. “The results of the state level analysis indicate that immigration does not increase American residents’ [U.S.-born] Unemployment or their labor force, “said the research.” Instead, more immigrants reduces the unemployment rate and increases the labor participation of American residents within the same sex and education group. “

To help explain these results, Zavodny be on other economic research that shows that immigrants can help create and maintain jobs, and notice: “Immigrants can stimulate consumer demand, start their own companies and reduce offshoring.” She quoted research By Gihoon Hong (Indiana University) and John McLaren (University of Virginia) who concluded that every extra immigrant creates 1.2 local jobs for local employees, mostly born employees born in the US, by increasing the demand for consumers for local services. Research by Jennifer Hunt and others has discovered that immigrants are more often than the US born to start or possess a business.

An analysis of 2024 of the expansion efforts from the past for the Peterson Institute for International Economics by George Mason University Economics Professor Michael Clemens predicted that American employees would not benefit if the Trump government tried to remove immigrants from the workforce. “The answer is that the American labor market is more complex than the comic economy in the minds of some politicians, who think that business owners are confronted with a loss of immigrant workers, just hire [U.S.-born] Employees to replace them, “says Clemens. Among other things, factors, “Business owners affected by sudden reductions of labor supply invest less in new business formation.”

Reducing employment, including by determining a more limiting immigration policy, will probably lead to lower levels of economic growth, which means less job creation and dynamics in the US economy. Economist Mark Regets said: “Although it is only one factor, we should not surprise that opportunities for employees born in the US are falling at the same time, an estimated one million fewer immigrants are in the labor force.”