The U.S. population growth is expected to decline at a faster rate than previously projected due to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Trump's Immigration Law Cuts Workforce, GDP Growth
The CBO’s updated demographic outlook, released on Wednesday, predicts that the U.S. will experience more deaths than births from 2031, two years earlier than previously projected. This shift is attributed to a reduced immigrant population and lower fertility rates, a consequence of Trump’s 2025 reconciliation act, or “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
The act allocates $170 billion for immigration and border enforcement, including a lump sum of $29.9 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations and the hiring of 10,000 ICE officers.
The CBO estimates that around 290,000 immigrants will be removed from the country between 2026 and 2029, with approximately 50,000 immigrants detained daily during this period.
This crackdown is expected to directly affect the labor force. According to the CBO report, the additional detentions caused by the law will reduce the available workforce and raise the chances of successful immigrant removals.
In a nutshell, Trump’s immigration crackdown will under some circumstances, “shrink U.S. GDP growth,” stated CBO.
Slow Job Growth, High Inflation As Immigrant Workforce Shrinks
Trump’s stringent immigration policies have already had a significant impact on the U.S. labor force. As of July, the U.S. labor force had seen a decline of over 1.2 million immigrants, both legal and undocumented, due to Trump’s policies, as per preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center.
This decline in immigrant workers is having a substantial impact on the U.S. job market. Pia Orrenius, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, noted that immigrants usually account for at least half of U.S. job growth, and their absence is significantly affecting the ability to create jobs.
While the CBO continues to report positive net migration, a July working paper from the American Enterprise Institute found that there will be negative net migration, reducing U.S. GDP growth by 0.3% to 0.4%, due to lower consumer spending and a shrinking labor force, reported Fortune.
The report co-author stated, “we…can't sustain a high level of job growth with the U.S.-born population alone, because there just aren't enough bodies, essentially, to do that."
Furthermore, the deportation of immigrants under Trump’s policies has been linked to rising costs and inflation by Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s, who warned that inflation could rise from the current 2.5% to almost 4% by the start of next year.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
