By the Staff of AFP
New data on immigration released in August reveals one major bright spot for the United States: the tough policies carried out by the Trump administration since taking power in January 2025 appear to be working.
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According to a new report released by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), “Analysis of the [Current Population Survey, or CPS] data shows the total foreign-born population of all ages, both in and out of the labor force, declined an unprecedented 2.2 million from January to July—the largest six-month decline ever within the same year.”
CPS is conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It is released every month and, according to BLS, “is the primary source of labor force statistics for the population of the United States.”
Based on these numbers and other data, CIS was able to conclude that the decline translated into around 1.6 million illegal immigrants leaving the United States.
It was well-known that the Biden administration had allowed an unprecedented number of illegal aliens into the United States. In January 2025, right before Donald Trump took office, CIS estimated the illegal population to be around 15.2 million. New estimates, calculated using the CPS, however, show that the number of illegal aliens has dropped to 13.8 million, marking a steep decline in nearly 2 million illegal aliens in the last six months alone.
That’s great news, writes senior research director Steven A. Camarota and demographer Karen Zeigler, who penned the new analysis for a special CIS report that was made public on Aug. 12 on CIS’s website.
And that’s not all. CIS also reports that this drop in illegal immigration has resulted in an increase in employment for U.S. citizens.
“Based on the BLS other employment-focused survey, that job growth is underreported, the CPS actually shows significant job growth among the U.S.-born,” notes CIS.
In other words, even amidst uncertainty surrounding the U.S. economy, this new data from CPS reveals that the decrease in illegal alien workers resulted in an increase in employment for U.S. citizens.
Camarota and Zeigler explained it this way, “Given the way the weighting system works in the CPS, if the overall foreign-born population declines in the survey, it must be accompanied by an increase in the overall U.S.-born because individuals can only be U.S.- or foreign-born.”
This should come as no surprise, because, in the past few decades, American citizens have had to compete in the job market against foreign-born illegal immigrants, who could be made to work for low wages because they are not in America legally.
Camarota and Zeigler laid out all of these findings and they indicate that, for all intents and purposes, the high-profile arrests, the stepped-up deportations, the border closures, self-deportations, and the mass hiring of new federal law enforcement officials carried out by the Trump administration are seeing noticeable results when it comes to illegal immigration into the United States.
