Goldman Slashes US Immigration Forecast As ‘America First’ Agenda Takes Hold
Vice President JD Vance spoke earlier to companies working “in the national interest” at the American Dynamism Summit, sponsored by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. In his address, he highlighted the significant progress achieved in just two months under a competent administration in securing the southern border and strengthening national security—following the previous administration’s globalist policies that sparked an illegal alien invasion crisis.
“Last month, migrant crossings were down 94%, to their lowest number all time, and that happened just in two months of serious border enforcement… Last month, for the first time in over a year, the majority of job gains went to American citizens born on US soil,” VP Vance told the crowd at the summit in Washington, DC, earlier this morning.
.@VP: “Last month, migrant crossings were down 94%, to their lowest number all time, and that happened just in two months of serious border enforcement… Last month, for the first time in over a year, the majority of job gains went to American citizens born on U.S. soil.” pic.twitter.com/syjhDBXeVi
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 18, 2025
Providing more context on VP Vance’s immigration figures, analysts from Goldman, including Jan Hatzius, Alec Phillips, and others, stated that US immigration policy has tightened significantly over the past two months, reducing the annualized inflow of humanitarian and other non-visa immigrants from 1.4 million to 200k. They noted that while deportation levels remained stable, total net immigration fell from 1.7 million in December to 700k in February.
Given the faster-than-expected decline in immigration, the analyst expects net inflows to reach 500k by the end of the year, down from a previous estimate of 750k. The contribution of immigration to labor force growth is also expected to slide and provide more job opportunities for Americans.
Further color from analysts…
How Much Has Immigration Fallen Since the Inauguration?
Immigration policy in the US tightened considerably in the first two months of 2025. We estimate that this resulted in a decline in annualized inflows of humanitarian and other immigrants (asylum seekers, parolees, people receiving temporary protected status, and illegal entrants; this includes all immigrants other than visa and green card recipients) to an annualized 0.2mn in February, down from 1.4mn in December 2024 (left, Exhibit 1).
While official statistics from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) show a moderate increase in arrests of unauthorized immigrants since early January, the increase has not led to a notable change in the number of deportations. The right side of Exhibit 1 shows that total immigrant outflows due to deportations remained in line with past trends. The number of outflows due to voluntary and other enforcement returns—which tend to be proportional to immigration inflows—declined over the past two months as inflows moderated.
Even though the number of deportations did not increase meaningfully, the sharp decline in immigration inflows still brought net immigration into the US down to an annualized pace of 0.7mn in February, from 1.7mn in December 2024 (Exhibit 2).
In our prior report, we highlighted the risk that the…
