During the first three years of President Donald Trump‘s leadership, the total illegal alien population in the country fell by 440,000, the Washington Times reported.
The progressive Center for Migration Studies estimated in a study that the porous US–Mexico border and the nation’s broken immigration system let in 1.75 million illegal aliens but that 2.19 million illegal aliens left the country from 2016 to 2019.
That put the illegal alien population at 10.35 million, a conservative estimate, in March 2019.
The Trump-era decline in the illegal-alien population happened because many Mexicans decided to return home.
Trump’s support for federal immigration enforcement likely convinced many illegal aliens that a peaceful return to their native nation was preferable to potential arrest and deportation.
Central Americans, Africans and Asians—rather than Mexicans—fuel Joe Biden‘s present-day illegal immigration crisis.
The CMS report provided statistics about America’s illegal alien population: 43% of illegal aliens have lived in the United States for at least 15 years, 16% are married to a legal resident or US citizen, and 3.9 million parents live here illegally with their children who are citizens.
Despite their sanctuary city policies, more than 450,000 illegal aliens migrated out of California and New York during Trump’s first three years in office.
Washington state, another sanctuary state, gained 30,000 illegal aliens.
Texas added 60,000 new illegal aliens. The state’s Mexican illegal-alien population declined by 175,000, but 120,000 new Central Americans, 47,000 new Asians and 42,000 new Africans offset that drop.
Steven A. Camarot, research director at the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies, said that the Trump-era illegal alien population decline seems reasonable, but that the outflow ended in July 2019 and reversed with Biden’s inauguration.
“In my view it is possible that the number of illegals will have grown by 700,000 to 1 million by the end of this year from whatever it was at the end of 2020,” Camarota said.
