Trump And Miller Slashing Legal Immigration By 33% To 50%

New research concludes the Trump administration’s policies will reduce legal immigration to the United States by 33% to 50% over four years. Restricting Americans’ ability to sponsor their closest family members will be the administration’s primary way to lower legal immigration. While aggressive deportation tactics by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have garnered headlines, cuts to the admission of legal immigrants will have a profound impact on the country and millions of people.

Numerous Restrictions On Legal Immigration

Trump officials have implemented policies to block American citizens and employers from sponsoring legal immigrants. The policies will override the immigration rules and categories that Congress established unless a lawsuit stops the actions.

“The Trump administration’s policies will reduce legal immigration to the United States by an estimated 33% to 50%, or by 1.5 million to 2.4 million legal immigrants, by the end of Donald Trump’s four-year term,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.

In FY 2023, 1,172,910 legal immigrants received permanent residence, also commonly referred to as green cards, on a pace for 4,691,640 over four years. “NFAP estimates 1,546,710 to 2,369,998, or 33% to 50%, fewer legal immigrants will gain green cards during Donald Trump’s administration due to policies that include significantly lower admission levels for refugees, restrictions on the Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens due to ‘public charge’ policies and a 39-country immigration ban, actions taken against Diversity Visa recipients and other policies.” The analysis provides a range because uncertainty remains about how restrictively administration officials will enact the policies.

These numbers do not include up to 2.7 million people lawfully in the United States when Donald Trump became president whose legal protections have been threatened. The Trump administration has ended Temporary Protected Status for several hundred thousand Venezuelans, Haitians and others, while also putting recipients of humanitarian parole at risk of deportation. In addition, upcoming policies could end or restrict international students’ ability to work through Optional Practical Training or STEM OPT, and a Labor Department rule could price employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market.

American Citizens Face Significant Restrictions On Immigration Sponsorship

A U.S. citizen can sponsor a spouse, a child under 21 and a parent in the Immediate Relatives category and, in the family preference category, a sibling or a child 21 or older. A lawful permanent resident (green card holder) can sponsor a spouse, a child or an unmarried son or daughter who is 21 or older. Approximately 48% of legal immigration comes from the Immediate Relatives category.

If policymakers want to lower the annual level of legal immigration, targeting the Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens would be effective. That’s because there is no numerical limit on the category, which means every Immediate Relative blocked would be one fewer immigrant admitted. In contrast, if the U.S. government denies an immigrant visa to someone in a family preference category, another immigrant may take their place because there are several hundred thousand people waiting in most backlog categories. (The administration has targeted these categories, too.)

Immigrant visas denied in the Immediate Relatives category will reduce the number of new green card holders. However, unused family or employment visas are reallocated to the other category in the next fiscal year.

Trump officials, led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the chief architect of the administration’s immigration policies, have adopted two policies to prevent American citizens from sponsoring a spouse, child or other close relative for immigration. First, the administration has banned the entry of individuals from many countries. Second, Trump officials plan to use a new interpretation of “public charge” to deny immigrant visas and permanent residence.

According to the analysis, “NFAP estimates that 941,625 to 1,654,770 fewer Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens will gain green cards during the Trump administration due to restrictive policies.” That represents a significant number of Americans who the U.S. government will deny the ability to live in the United States with their spouse, child or parent.

The Dec. 16 Proclamation On Immigration

The Trump administration’s Dec. 16 proclamation prohibits the entry of the Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens and other immigrants from 39 countries, or approximately 20% of the world’s nations. The proclamation alone will reduce immigration by up to 76,000 a year, depending on whether U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services processes cases inside the country for individuals from these countries. USCIS has said it will hold pending cases and “re-review” cases already approved for nationals of the 39 countries since January 20, 2021.

The Jan. 14 Immigration Freeze

On January 14, 2026, the State Department announced, “President Trump has made clear that immigrants must be financially self-sufficient and not be a financial burden to Americans. The Department of State is undergoing a full review of all policies, regulations, and guidance to ensure that immigrants from these high-risk countries do not utilize welfare in the United States or become a public charge.” The State Department froze issuance of immigrant visas to 75 countries, including Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria and many others.

Due to the overlap between the 75 countries on the “freeze” list and the 39 countries in the Dec. 16 proclamation, 93 countries are included in the administration’s immigration restrictions when combining the two lists.

According to NFAP, “The analysis assumes that individuals from the 75 countries on the Jan. 14 ‘freeze’ list—except for those banned from the 39 countries under the Dec. 16 proclamation—will eventually be allowed to apply for immigrant visas and adjustment of status. However, between 50% to 100% of them will be denied immigrant visas, depending on how strictly the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department enforce their new ‘public charge’ criteria designed to block new immigrants.”

Approximately 371,000 individuals from the 75 countries subject to the Jan. 14 freeze received permanent residence in FY 2023, 171,210 in the Immediate Relatives of U.S. Citizens category.

No Policy Justification Made For Reducing Legal Immigration

Analysts note there is no policy justification for the Trump administration’s reductions in legal immigration other than the desire of Stephen Miller and others to allow fewer immigrants the opportunity to live in the United States.

In its Federal Register notice on public charge, DHS could not cite any “quantitative” benefits its new rule would produce. Instead, it cited a “qualitative” benefit given to government employees by allowing them greater freedom to deny U.S. citizens the ability to sponsor a spouse, child or other close family members. That will be accomplished through subjective standards designed to assume new immigrants will use public benefits, even though they are not eligible for federal means-tested public benefits for at least five years after entering the United States. (The rules differ for refugees and asylees.)

Family immigrants have higher labor force participation rates than comparable U.S.-born individuals and, on average, only 1.6% received public assistance income in 2021-2023, according to a report by economist Mark Regets, an NFAP senior fellow. Regets found that real earnings increased by 76% over 12 years for immigrants from countries where family sponsorship is the primary method of immigrating to the United States, far higher than for U.S. workers.

“Even if someone starts out at a low income, a rapid increase in earnings makes it very likely they will be a net asset to the U.S. economy,” said Regets in an interview.

DHS does not acknowledge research showing the positive fiscal and economic impact of admitting immigrants. According to George Mason University economics professor Michael Clemens, an average recent immigrant without a high school degree has a lifetime positive net fiscal balance of $128,000. “Including the expected children and grandchildren of the average immigrant without a high school degree, the lifetime positive net fiscal effect is $326,000.” Immigrants with more education have a more positive lifetime net fiscal balance.

Labor force growth is crucial to the U.S. economy. Economic growth relies on labor force growth and productivity growth, and immigrants are essential to both. “The Trump administration’s policies on illegal and legal immigration would reduce the projected number of workers in the United States by 6.8 million by 2028 and by 15.7 million by 2035 and lower the annual rate of economic growth by almost one-third, harming U.S. living standards,” according to an October 2025 NFAP analysis.

The analysis found the combination of the Trump administration’s policies on illegal and legal immigration would increase the total federal debt held by the public by $252 billion by 2028 (in 2025 dollars) and by $1.74 trillion (or $1.42 trillion in 2025 dollars) between 2025 and 2035.

The unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers rose from 3.7% in December 2024 to 4.1% in December 2025, an 11% increase. This rise in the unemployment rate came at the same time the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a decline of 881,000 foreign-born workers since the start of the Trump administration in January 2025, contradicting Miller’s prediction that reducing immigration would produce an economic boon for U.S. workers.

Writing in the Washington Post’s Book World, Ron Charles points to Stephen Miller’s comments to CNN’s Jake Tapper about using government power to enforce the policy preferences of those in authority. The comments referred to the Trump administration’s plans to take over Greenland, though could also apply to current U.S. immigration policies. “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” said Miller.