President Donald Trump’s tough stance on immigration is expected to have a visible impact on the U.S. population trajectory. Population growth across the country slowed sharply last year, marking its weakest pace since the Covid-19 period. A key reason is the decline in immigration, which is already beginning to strain parts of the economy.
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that most counties saw slower growth between July 2024 and July 2025. About 40 percent of counties recorded a net population decline, pointing to a broader cooling trend in demographic expansion.
The slowdown in U.S. population growth is becoming more widespread, reinforcing concerns about tightening immigration and its economic ripple effects. Fresh estimates from the Census Bureau show that a majority of the country’s 3,143 counties, along with the District of Columbia, saw growth decelerate between July 2024 and July 2025.
The shift is striking when compared to the previous year. Of the 2,066 counties that posted gains between 2023 and 2024, nearly 80 percent either grew more slowly or slipped into decline in 2025. In several cases, counties that were already losing residents saw those losses deepen.
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The trend extends to urban America as well. Out of 387 metropolitan areas, 310 reported slower growth over the same period. Some of the sharpest slowdowns were concentrated along the U.S.-Mexico border. Laredo, Texas, saw growth drop from 3.2 percent to just 0.2 percent. Yuma, Arizona, fell from 3.3 percent to 1.4 percent, while El Centro, California, moved from modest growth into negative territory.
The underlying driver of this slowdown is a sharp pullback in net international migration, which has declined across the country. Census data shows that nine out of ten U.S. counties saw fewer international arrivals between July 2024 and June 2025 compared to the previous year, and even the remaining counties did not record any meaningful increase.
The impact is especially visible in some of the most populous parts of the country. These areas typically rely on a steady inflow of migrants to offset domestic outmigration, where more residents leave than arrive from within the U.S. While many of these counties still see more births than deaths, the drop in international migration has weakened that cushion. The combined effect is a clear slowdown in growth and, in some cases, an outright population decline.
“The nation’s largest counties like those in the New York metro area are often international migration hubs, gaining large numbers of international migrants and losing people that move to other parts of the country via domestic migration,” said George M. Hayward, a Census Bureau demographer. “With fewer gains from international migration, these types of counties saw their population growth diminish or even turn into loss.”
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Even within this broader slowdown, the geography of growth is shifting in telling ways. Much of the fastest expansion is now concentrated across the southeastern U.S., particularly in states like Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. In large metro regions, growth is increasingly pushed to outer suburban edges, a pattern that stands out in Texas.
At the same time, overall momentum is fading. Metro area growth has dropped sharply, nearly halving from 1.1 percent to 0.6 percent, largely due to reduced international migration, even as domestic outflows from big cities begin to ease and birth-death trends remain stable.
What is emerging is a steady redistribution of the population. The largest counties continue to lose residents to smaller ones, with America’s biggest population centers seeing significant domestic outmigration, while mid-sized and smaller counties absorb those gains.
Natural decrease also remains widespread, with nearly two-thirds of counties recording more deaths than births. Even though metro areas are still growing overall, that growth is increasingly dependent on international migration to offset domestic losses. As that inflow weakens, the slowdown is becoming more visible across both urban and rural America.