When Joe Biden threw open the southern border with a de facto “let them all in” approach, the results were immediate and disastrous. Net migration exploded to roughly 2.3 million people per year during his first three years in office — the fastest pace on record. Even The New York Times acknowledged it was the largest surge in U.S. history.
America is a nation built by immigrants, and nearly every family can trace its roots to newcomers who followed the law and contributed to the country. But that legacy does not justify the chaos unleashed by today’s unchecked, unvetted mass migration — much of it illegal. In the modern era, allowing millions of unknown individuals to cross the border without meaningful screening is not compassion; it is negligence.
The consequences are obvious: strained public services, downward pressure on wages, overwhelmed cities, and glaring national security risks created by a government that has lost track of who is entering the country and why.
Donald Trump took a markedly different approach. Rather than pretending the border could manage itself, his administration moved aggressively to restore control — tightening asylum standards, enforcing existing immigration laws, restricting abuse of visa programs, and reining in refugee admissions that had become detached from capacity and security realities.
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The result was not the apocalyptic scenario promised by critics. It was order. Border crossings fell, interior enforcement resumed, and the federal government regained a basic level of control over who was allowed into the country. The payoff was something Americans haven’t seen in decades:
Net migration to the United States fell by between 10,000 and 295,000 in 2025, according to an update of estimates first released in the summer by economists Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson, of center-left Brookings, and Stan Veuger, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
New @BrookingsInst research shows there was a significant drop-off in entries to the United States in 2025 relative to 2024, estimating that net migration was between -10,000 and -295,000 in 2025, the first time in at least half a century it has been negative.
In a new… pic.twitter.com/FmtugUAjvN
— Brookings Econ (@BrookingsEcon) January 13, 2026
In a new analysis, the authors assess what the numbers will be in 2026 and how that will affect the U.S. macroeconomy.
The repatriation initiatives undertaken by the Trump administration, which are still ongoing, have contributed to the situation; however, researchers indicate that other factors are influencing the issue even more significantly:
While arrests and deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been in the spotlight, the report’s authors attribute the majority of the drop-off in immigration to a slowdown in new arrivals orchestrated by President Donald Trump’s administration — from the near-closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to new visa restrictions and fees and the end of many humanitarian migrant programs, including for nearly all refugees.
Trump has openly revealed his plans to overhaul the current system and made his intentions known in a Thanksgiving message:
“I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States.”
“Other than that, Happy Thanksgiving to all.”
Reverse migration. "I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden's Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net… pic.twitter.com/Dnd7wvtqjf
— Katy Grimes (@KATYSaccitizen) November 28, 2025
Even the numbers used to criticize the immigration slowdown are far from settled. While analysts at the Brookings Institution claim reduced migration, their figures are disputed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which relied on lower estimates of deportations and voluntary departures and calculated net migration at roughly plus 400,000. The Trump administration, for its part, argues Brookings undercounted removals and voluntary exits altogether — and that net migration actually fell even more sharply than Brookings suggests.
That debate has not stopped many on the left from sounding the alarm. Progressive economists and advocacy groups insist that fewer immigrants will hurt the economy. Brookings warned that “reduced migration will dampen growth in the labor force, consumer spending, and gross domestic product (GDP).”
But that argument conveniently ignores the costs of the alternative. Would critics really prefer a return to the uncontrolled surge that defined the Biden years — millions arriving with little oversight, no meaningful vetting, and no plan to absorb them?
Conservatives argue the damage from that experiment is already clear. Biden’s policies fueled a humanitarian crisis at the border, drove up rents in cities flooded with migrants, undercut wages by pushing jobs toward illegal workers willing to work off the books, and drained taxpayer resources at every level of government. Orderly, lawful immigration strengthens the country. Chaos does not — and Americans are no longer buying the idea that disorder is an economic strategy.
Legal immigration has always strengthened the United States — when it is orderly and when newcomers are expected to assimilate. That formula built the country. Abandoning it in favor of chaos does not improve America; it weakens it.
Immigration only works when the system is rational, controlled, and fair to everyone involved — citizens, legal immigrants, and those waiting their turn. When the rules collapse, so does public trust. That is exactly what happened when enforcement was sidelined and the border effectively dissolved into an open invitation.
Donald Trump was right to put an end to the madness. Restoring enforcement was not anti-immigrant; it was pro-law, pro-worker, and pro-nation. America doesn’t lose its appeal by insisting on rules. It preserves it.
