a Recent papers The Center for Immigration Studies suggests that the answer is yes.
We estimate in advance that the number of illegal immigrants has fallen by 1 million since the beginning of the year, perhaps as they left, responding to President Trump’s election and strengthened enforcement efforts. However, it is important to note that these findings come with important warnings.
Survey results:
- Based on the CPS, the published figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the number of foreign-born individuals in the workforce has decreased from 601,000. January In May 2025.
- Analyses of raw data show that the total foreign-born population fell by 957,000 from January to May 2025, both within and outside the workforce. This is one of the biggest declines in the last 30 years of foreign-born four months, but there is no precedent.
- The decline was completely among non-citizens. The number of naturalized US citizens in the data did not decrease from January to May this year.
- Preliminary estimates show that in May 2025 there were 14.8 million illegal immigrants in the country, 14.8 million less than estimated in January this year.
However, the author includes some important warnings:
There are important notes about all these numbers. 1) The decline in non-citizens is statistically significant, but not the decline in the total foreign-born population. 2) Given the recent strengthened enforcement efforts, it may have been at least partially due to decline, by immigrants taking part in the investigation and identifying them as foreign-born rather than actual numbers defects. 3) Finally, some of the management data required to estimate illegal immigration is not yet available, so preliminary estimates can be made.
Even supporters of the administration’s deportation policy It seems to be acknowledged These numbers are the numbers above Official deportation It’s too low to have a major impact on undocumented total immigrant stock.
I have looked at many labor market time series, but found no evidence of large-scale self-reports. In fact, the workforce has grown at an unusually rapid pace of 1.6% over the past year.
This monthly survey data is relatively noisy, so I also looked at monthly salary and employment data. This is considered to be more reliable. Job growth in 2025 continues at a rate of over 100,000 per month, in line with a strong economy. If 1 million immigrants were self-reported, then total employment would be expected to decline sharply.
In theory, one million unemployed people may have rushed to self-reported farm workers and maids, but between January and May 2025, the unemployment rate actually rose from 4.0% to 4.2%.
The most plausible explanation of the findings is that undocumented migrants are more wary of government responses to government investigations.
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