President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to target illegal immigration and deport undocumented immigrants. But, according to an analysis from the Libertarian think tank Cato Institute, the largest impact in Trump’s second term has been to legal immigrants.
The analysis uses government data, spanning asylum and refugee admissions to work visas and international students.
Report author David Bier says illegal immigration was significantly down even before Trump took office due to Biden-era crackdowns at the border.
His analysis shows that since last January, the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. has dropped by 90%, and bans on nationals from dozens of countries has led the number of immigrant visas to be roughly cut in half.
“By virtually every category, from high skill to low skill, to family, to employment, whatever you’re talking about — refugees, humanitarian entries — all of it is down by a significant amount,” Bier said. “And if you add it all up, the immigration cuts to legal immigration, constitute about 72% of the total cuts to immigration under this administration.”
In other words, Bier says, legal immigration has been cut twice as much as illegal immigration.
He says the impact of those changes will be felt for years to come — as processing backlogs increase visa wait times and foreign workers struggle to keep their status.
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New federal court filings reveal that efforts to build an ICE detention center in Surprise are progressing slowly, and the Department of Homeland Security has indicated there is no rush to open the facility. -
Court records obtained by the research group TRAC show the government filed 50 such cases in the month of July — including two in Arizona. -
Congress created the federal legal aid program almost two decades ago and has directed funds to it every year. But on July 31, the roughly $200 million annual contract to do that work came to an end. -
The lawsuit is the latest in a string of similar legal challenges the Trump administration has filed following a 2025 executive order directing the Justice Department to take action against state laws that allegedly favor undocumented people. -
An ongoing dispute between Border Patrol and the Tohono O’odham Nation in southern Arizona continues to escalate.
