The United States population gained immigrants at the slowest pace in a decade last year, according to an analysis of new census data, a notable slowdown that experts said was quite likely linked to a more restrictive approach by the Trump administration.
The net increase of immigrants in the American population dropped to about 200,000 people in 2018, a decline of more than 70 percent from the year before, according to William Frey, chief demographer at the Brookings Institution, who conducted the analysis.
Its remarkable, said David Bier, an immigration expert at the Cato Institute, of the 2018 numbers. This is something that really hasnt happened since the Great Recession. This should be very concerning to the administration that its policies are scaring people away.
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Such a sharp drop in immigrant flows is unusual during times of economic expansion, when jobs are plentiful and people tend to want to stay and work. The last time the pace slowed so much was during the financial crisis in 2008, when the flow actually declined.
Experts said much of last years drop was probably an indirect effect of President Trumps approach to immigration policy. Congress sets most limits on immigration, but a presidents policies can also have an effect. Mr. Trumps ban on travel from several majority-Muslim countries in 2017 has stranded thousands of immigrants abroad. He has cut the number of refugees and created new procedures that make processing visa applications more onerous.
Its probably no one factor, said Randy Capps, director of United States research for the Migration Policy Institute. Its probably a number of small factors, a lot of which are related to policy changes and to the general effect of Trump being president.