The U.S. population saw its slowest rate of increase since the COVID-19 pandemic, with President Donald Trump’s sealing of the border being credited with the development, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.
The U.S. population grew by 1%, 3.2 million, between July 2023 and July 2024 but decreased to a 0.5% growth rate from July 2024 to July 2025, adding just 1.8 million new people. The primary culprit was a plummet in international migration, declining 53.8% from 2023-2024 to 2024-2025.
“The slowdown in U.S. population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025,” Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections at the Census Bureau, said in a statement. “With births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today.”
At current trends, net international migration will decline even further, with the projected 2025-2026 total being just 321,000.
Nonimmigration changes to the population were a boost of 519,000 from 2024 to 2025, a total close to that of the year before. The natural increase of the population is significantly lower than it was in previous decades; in the 2010s, the natural yearly increase fell between 1.6 million and 1.9 million.
The United States also witnessed considerable internal migration, showing a pattern of blue state residents moving to red states. Only five states declined in population from 2024 to 2025 — California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont, and West Virginia. All but West Virginia are deep blue states.
Unlike in previous years, the Midwest finally saw positive net domestic migration from summer 2024 to summer 2025.
“And while the net domestic migration was a relatively modest 16,000, this is still a notable turnaround from the substantial domestic migration losses in 2021 and 2022 of -175,000 or greater,” Marc Perry, senior demographer at the Census Bureau, said in a statement.
SIX STATES THAT SAW THE BIGGEST MIGRATION SHIFTS IN 2024
South Carolina grew the most out of any state from 2024 to 2025, seeing a growth rate of 1.5%. It was followed by Idaho, North Carolina, Texas, and Utah. Texas and the Carolinas were some of the fastest-growing states the year before, too.
The overall results show Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration is working, more than halving the number of immigrants who arrived over the past year. This comes at the cost of rapid population growth, posing what could be a challenge to economic growth in the near future.
