I have not posted on  reports that the number of foreign-born persons in the country has fallen, for several reasons: the reports I have seen are aggregate,  not confirmed by the Census Bureau, not tied down to categories, and it is not clear when downward trends began. Only by looking at flows by category can we really have faith in a total number. And any accounting of flows of foreign-born is at best an estimate due to extreme complexity of how the government counts, and the extreme difficulty of estimating all outflows.

It is safe to say that compared to the FYs 2024 and 2025, the inflow of foreign-born has declined by several million – but those years were abnormally high. I think that no one really knows if the total foreign-born population has declined, nor (more importantly) in what ways.

The estimable David Bier has examined some (though not all) categories. This provides important evidence giving credibility to a total decline. The Census Bureau reported in January some flows (here). Bier breaks down into finer categories.

Here are Bier’s estimates with some commentary by me.

Border Patrol arrests at the southwest border.  They have fallen drastically, by over 80%. But the decline happened in the last year of the Biden administration and declined further in the first months under Biden. This should likely be confirmed in declines in new applications for asylum. And indeed Bier says that asylum applicants by persons entering legally into the U.S, have declined by 99%. But the arrested persons had entered illegally

New applications for asylum in FY 2025, about 875,000, was close to that in FY 2024 – 900,000. However, the first quarter of FY 2026 shows only about 70,000 – which extrapolated is 240,000 for the entire FY 2026. This is consistent with far fewer illegal and legal crossings, which I assume account for the vast majority of asylum applications

Recorded evasions of Border Patrol—known “gotaways.” They also fell about 80% under President Trump. But by December 2024 evasions had fallen a lot.  The annual flow (using as always here fiscal years) had plummeted and presumably that has persisted into FY 2026: FY 2023: 670,000; FY 2024: 250,000; FY 2025: 75,000.

Refugees entering legally from abroad fell by about 90%. The number for the last 12 months of the Biden administration (though December 2025) was at an annualized rate of over 100,000; It fell sharply to an annualized rate of under 20,000 and now is capped at 7,500.

Bier does not address entries under humanitarian parole. That has pretty much stopped.

Green card entries. Immigrant visas for legal permanent residents fell by about half. Prior to COVID this in-flow was at about one million a year. Per Bier, this has even affected fiancés and married persons, as visas for them fell by 65%.

H‑1B visas have likely fallen by about 25%. The total number of the change in flow is complicated by the number of family members.

Bier says that international student visas fell by 40% from summer 2024 to summer 2025.  This would be useful data were we to relate it to the number of  international students registered in the  “SEVIS” database – about 1.5 million in 2024 – but current figures are not available. Surveys of higher education do not bear out such a decline in either total international student enrollment or in new students.

Deportations. Bier does not address.  The annualized rate of forced deportations may be in the 500,000 – 600,000 range. That may be several hundreds of thousands than in the typical Biden year. That does not address unreported voluntary deportations.