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America's foreign-born population is shrinking for the first time in generations. It is a historic reversal that is driven by President Trump's sweeping immigration crackdown. As NPR's Martin Kaste reports, most of the decrease seems to be coming not from deportations, but from people choosing to leave.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: In late September, the Department of Homeland Security announced what it called a milestone - quote, "over 2 million illegal aliens out of the United States," unquote, since January. Steven Camarota calls these numbers extraordinary.
STEVEN CAMAROTA: Since 1970, the overall immigrant population in the United States has grown steadily - until now.
KASTE: Camarota is director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates restricting immigration. He calculates the total foreign-born population, both legal and illegal status, has shrunk by 2.3 million. That's based on monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics household surveys.
CAMAROTA: It's reasonable to wonder whether all of that is real, but we see some corroboration for this when we look at some other employment data as well. So it looks like something fundamentally has changed with President Trump taking office.
KASTE: This change is very visible to immigration lawyers. In San Jose, California, Richard Hobbs says he has fewer clients now, and those who still come in say they know others who are just going home.
RICHARD HOBBS: But I would say the bigger issue is the overall fear that is driving people away from asking for immigration remedies at all.
KASTE: That may be a result of stories like what recently happened in San Diego. Tessa Cabrera, an immigration lawyer there, recalls the moment last month when ICE suddenly started showing up during immigration formalities and arresting anyone with less-than-legal status. It happened to a client of hers doing his final interview for a green card - permanent legal status.
TESSA CABRERA: The client had signed his application digitally on their iPad. The officer said, I'll be right back, stepped out. And in walked two ICE officers and - asked him for his name and then put him in handcuffs.
KASTE: Keep in mind, this happened in a bureaucratic setting, not immigration court and not an ICE check-in. This means more risk now for people who want to try to legalize their status. Cabrera calls it one of the most chilling experiences of her career.
CABRERA: To have that trust that you put in the government to adjudicate - and actually, you know, pay the government to adjudicate your case - just entirely violated was just astonishing.
KASTE: And stories like that are definitely reaching other immigrants, like Sara Pereira (ph). She and her husband came here illegally from Brazil during the Biden years. She says they just wanted to earn some money and go back home. Her husband was recently deported, and she is still in the Boston area lying low.
SARA PEREIRA: (Speaking Portuguese).
KASTE: "I can't walk down the street, I get so anxious," she says.
PEREIRA: (Speaking Portuguese).
KASTE: "If it were up to me, I would have left already," Pereira says. But she can't just yet because she was scammed out of her travel money by someone offering legal help on the internet. She knows the U.S. government offers a $1,000 stipend to people who self-deport using the Customs and Border Protection app, but she says, no way.
PEREIRA: (Speaking Portuguese).
KASTE: "I don't trust it," she says. She worries about legal penalties and that the app might track her or the people she associates with. Some of them are thinking of leaving, too.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We don't want them.
KASTE: And that's in line with President Trump's vision of slowing or even stopping immigration. Here he is on Thanksgiving after two National Guardsmen were shot near the White House, allegedly by an immigrant from Afghanistan.
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TRUMP: They come in illegally, have a lot of problems. Their countries force them in because their countries are smart. They don't want them.
KASTE: Trump's message seems to be having an effect. At CIS, Steven Camarota wishes ICE enforcement focused more on work sites, but he thinks the publicity around these individual arrests is also pushing people to leave on their own.
CAMAROTA: Everyone I talk to in immigrant communities feels a great deal more concerned that enforcement has become a very real possibility.
KASTE: According to the administration's estimates, self-deportation is four times more frequent than compelled deportation, though the government is holding a record number of immigrants right now, and many, quote, "volunteer to leave" just so they can get out of detention. It's hard to know what long-term effect this enforcement pressure will have on future immigration.
PEREIRA: (Cooing, laughter).
KASTE: Holding her baby boy - born here - Sara Pereira says she's leaving in January but hopes to come back.
PEREIRA: (Speaking Portuguese).
KASTE: "My son is an American, and I think he deserves to have the benefits of this country," she says. She hopes that when the temporary ban on her husband's reentry lapses, they can pick up where they left off. Martin Kaste, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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