Trump’s immigration agenda won him votes — but what about his promise on American jobs?
A hardline approach to immigration is what Donald Trump campaigned on and won for, but the point was to ensure that US-born workers can get the jobs that are usually handled by immigrants. Trump’s anti-immigration drive has been highly effective if you simply look at how many foreign nationals have come into and gone out of the country, but that has not translated into there being more jobs that Americans would be willing to do.
A recent report in Fortune states that from February 2025 to February 2026, labor force participation for US-born workers over the age of 16 fell from 61.4% to 61%. This data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The labor market has not had a lot of new jobs added, as in 2025, only 181,000 jobs were added. In fact, there is an argument that the crackdown on immigration has led to a decline in jobs for US-born workers.
That’s what National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) senior fellow Mark Regets believes. “Most economic research shows that immigration increases employment opportunities for the US-born, so it would not be surprising if reducing immigration harms American workers,” he said. “A company unable to find the workers it needs for some roles could shut down operations rather than continuing.” Regets also believes that the country was losing immigrants who were helping the American economy grow.
Since Trump took power for the second time last year, the exodus of immigrants has been notable. As per the Brookings Institution, the country saw between 10,000 and 295,000 people leave. As a result, for the first time in about 50 years, America achieved net negative migration. The NFAP also reported a decline of 596,000 foreign-born workers since the start of 2026.
But it's not only the immigrants who are leaving. Emigration has also gained equal traction. According to a report published by the Wall Street Journal, many Americans are leaving the country for better job opportunities elsewhere, some place they consider safe and affordable, both of which have affected Trump's approval ratings negatively.
Experts believe that the US simply cannot sustain a healthy growth rate without immigrants, as there are simply not enough Americans who are willing or skilled enough to do those jobs. “Our workforce is disproportionately made up of immigrants relative to their share of the population, and because of that we…really can’t sustain a high level of job growth with the US-born population alone, because there just aren’t enough bodies, essentially, to do that,” Tara Watson, a Brookings economist and professor of economics at Williams College, had said earlier.
“For years, nativists in Congress and the administration have wrongly claimed that immigrants are behind the growth in debt and that the U.S. immigration system allowed foreigners to take advantage of Americans’ generosity,” David Bier, Cato Institute director of immigration studies, had expressed. “Our data completely repudiates this view. Immigrants are subsidizing the U.S. government.”
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