Both Parties Are Missing Something Big on Immigration

Not so long ago, demographers were predicting that it would take until the year 2081 for the number of people in America to shrink for the first time. Now, with the Trump administration’s aggressive campaign to attack both illegal and legal immigration, some say that could happen as soon as this year.

New data from the Census Bureau found that between June 30, 2024 and July 1, 2025, the US population grew by just 0.5% to about 342 million — a slowdown that can be attributed almost entirely to a drop in net international migration. (The birth rate, long in decline, didn’t change much.)