Donald Trump’s Team Takes First Steps To Cut Legal Immigration

Helpful analysis:

Donald Trump reduced legal immigration in his first term, and his team has taken the first steps to do so again. As president, Trump enacted policies that blocked hundreds of thousands of people from immigrating to the United States. Courts stopped some of the most restrictive proposals, but those measures could reemerge in 2025. Economists warn that America faces declining labor force growth without increasing legal immigration. Higher economic growth and living standards will become more challenging if the United States welcomes fewer legal immigrants.

Legal Immigration Declined During Trump’s First Term

Using the president’s authority and restrictive administrative measures, Trump officials reduced the number of legal immigrants admitted to the United States during his first term. According to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis, “If the FY 2016 level had continued during the four years of the Trump administration, approximately 770,000 more individuals would have immigrated legally to the United States.”

The analysis points out the numbers understate the decline because legal immigration rose for three straight years before Donald Trump became president. “The annual level of legal immigration declined by 13% (or 151,740) between FY 2016 and FY 2019 and 40% (or 476,143) between FY 2016 and FY 2020. That decline continued in FY 2021, almost four months of which took place during the Trump administration.”

While Covid-19 reduced admissions in the second half of FY 2020 (the fiscal year ended on September 30, 2020), the Trump administration furthered the reduction by stopping almost all immigrants from entering the United States. In April 2020, Donald Trump issued a proclamation that blocked the entry of all categories of immigrants, including employment-based, except the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens, certain medical personnel and individuals whose entry would be in the “national interest.”

A few months later, Trump issued another proclamation that blocked the entry of H-1B, H-2B, L-1 and most J-1 temporary visa holders through December 31, 2020. In an NFAP study, University of North Florida economics professor Madeline Zavodny concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic and Trump administration policies reduced H-1B and J-1 visas but did not help U.S. workers. “The drop in H-2B program admissions did not boost labor market opportunities for U.S. workers but rather, if anything, worsened them.”

Early Actions To Reduce Legal Immigration

On January 25, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping all refugee admissions into the United States. In FY 2021, the Biden administration surpassed 100,000 refugee admissions. The executive order structured the process such that Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and the president’s homeland security advisor, receives a report from cabinet officials. Refugee admissions could resume in several months, or it is possible that no refugees will come to America during Donald Trump’s second term.

Nearly 300,000 more refugees would have entered the United States in Trump’s first term if Miller had not fought to suspend refugee admissions and then lower them to historically low levels. The 18,000-ceiling for FY 2020 was 84% lower than the 110,000 limit set in the last year of the Obama administration. The lower refugee admissions did not appear right away in immigration statistics since refugees file for permanent residence a year after entry, and many arrived before Trump took office.

In February 2025, the State Department announced a new policy that will increase visa wait times at U.S. consulates by narrowing the grounds for waiving interviews. Applicants are eligible to waive visa interviews if they “previously held a visa in the same category that expired less than 12 months prior to the new application . . . and apply in their country of nationality or residence, have never been refused a visa (unless such refusal was overcome or waived) and have no apparent or potential ineligibility.”

According to Dagmar Butte of Parker Butte, “The effect is to delay the ability of people to return to the U.S. who have approved petitions if they are changing visa categories. The wait times for interviews at many consulates are quite long.”

A January 20, 2025, executive order set the stage for a new version of the “Muslim ban.” The order states that within 60 days, various officials will submit a report to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.” More broadly, the executive order calls for officials to “Evaluate all visa programs to ensure that they are not used by foreign nation-states or other hostile actors to harm the security, economic, political, cultural, or other national interests of the United States.”

“We are starting to see signs of the impact of the president’s ‘extreme vetting’ policy,” said Dan Berger of Green & Spiegel. “Officers are increasingly comparing what the individual says and has on electronic devices to other agency records and what’s on the internet. That is fair, but recently we have seen minor inconsistencies lead to denied entry.” He said it has become more difficult to tell temporary visa holders whether it is safe to travel.

A Federal Register notice announced that because of the executive order “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” USCIS must implement “rigorous vetting and screening of all grounds of inadmissibility or bases for the denial of immigration- related benefits.” As a result, “Execution of the E.O. requires USCIS to collect Social Media Identifier(s) on immigration forms and/or information collection systems.”

The Trump administration also plans to end parole for several hundred thousand individuals sponsored for humanitarian parole and terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, Venezuelans and others.

Using “Public Charge” To Reduce Legal Immigration

During Donald Trump’s first term, the administration published a “public charge” rule that could have lowered legal immigration levels by raising income and resource requirements for immigrants well beyond current law. Although the rule was not in effect for long due to legal action and injunctions, when the State Department followed its parameters, it contributed to reduced immigration. Admissions in the Immediate Relatives category fell by 7% between FY 2017 and FY 2018, and temporary visas for a K-1 Fiancé(e) of U.S. Citizen declined by 10,122 or 29%.

The public charge rule was an “obsession” for Stephen Miller, according to New York Times journalists Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear. Immigrants are generally ineligible for means-tested federal benefits programs unless they have worked in the United States for five years or longer in a lawful status. (State program eligibility may vary.)

The Biden administration eliminated the Trump rule and followed that by publishing its own public charge rule. The new Trump administration would need to start from the beginning on “public charge.” Trump officials must contend with the Supreme Court’s decision to end Chevron deference to federal agencies, which could help lawsuits against new measures that go beyond U.S. immigration law or regulatory authority. The Trump administration’s public charge rule read like a bill in Congress, such as by establishing income requirements that do not appear in the Immigration and Nationality Act.

In October 2019, Donald Trump issued an executive order barring immigrants from the United States without proof of health insurance or the means to buy it. The order was a pretext to block immigrants rather than an attempt to reform public health policy. Although not in effect long due to legal action, a return of the order could decimate legal admissions. The Migration Policy Institute estimated that up to 400,000 immigrants a year could be denied entry under such a mandate. It could return during a second Trump administration.

Due to the lengthy family preference backlogs, administrative measures to restrict legal immigration are most likely to reduce admissions each year in categories without numerical limits, especially the “Immediate Relatives” of U.S. citizens (i.e., spouses, parents and children under 21). Approximately 200,000 fewer Immediate Relatives of U.S. citizens immigrated between FY 2017 and 2019 than if admissions remained at the same level as FY 2016. The entry ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries contributed to the decline.

Given the passage of the Laken Riley Act with Democratic support, Stephen Miller and other Trump officials will likely hope they can pass a bill through Congress that reduces legal immigration. One can expect efforts by Miller and colleagues to block the entry of Diversity Visa and family-sponsored immigrants through regulation or presidential proclamation or to eliminate the categories through legislation.

Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen recently wrote, “Trump is a strong supporter of legal immigration.” He cites Trump’s campaign promise to offer green cards to international students who graduate from U.S. universities. Donald Trump showed no signs of wanting to increase legal immigration in his first term. Trump’s team has already taken steps to reduce legal immigration to the United States in his second term.

Source: Donald Trump’s Team Takes First Steps To Cut Legal Immigration