The Census Bureau’s new population growth figures ought to be a wake-up call to Americans. Unfortunately, it’s not the only recent call that will likely go unanswered.
It may be a slight consolation that other large nations — China, for instance — are worse off. As economist Nicholas Eberstadt wrote recently for the American Enterprise Institute, “Tumbling birth rates have already thrown China into depopulation, with over four deaths for every three births in 2025.”
Two solutions
Two things could pull the United States away from a similar and seemingly inevitable demographic catastrophe. One — increasing the fertility rate — has proven difficult for governments to influence. Many nations have tried financial incentives and generous maternity leave and benefits to induce larger families. These have produced few, if any, results.
But the other thing lies well within government’s control. It is the need to increase the rate of legal immigration.
Immigration has long been a source of strength for the United States. As the George W. Bush Institute’s website puts it:
“Immigration fuels the economy. When immigrants enter the labor force, they increase the productive capacity of the economy and raise GDP. Their incomes rise, but so do those of natives. It’s a phenomenon dubbed the ‘immigration surplus’ …”
Also, “immigrants grease the wheels of the labor market by flowing into industries and areas where there is a relative need for workers — where bottlenecks or shortages might otherwise damp growth.”
Troubling new numbers
The Census report measured changes from 2020 to 2025. It found “a historic decline in net international migration” which, in the year ending on July 1, 2025, fell to 1.3 million in the United States.
But because that time period included only the first six months of Donald Trump’s second term, the report projected a further decline “to approximately 321,000 in 2026 if current trends continue.”
Because the report measures net migration, it includes people moving out of the country, as well.
Except for Montana and West Virginia, the report said, every state in the union is seeing a decline in growth due to fewer births and less migration. Utah remained among the top five fastest growing states, but its 1% growth rate (translating to 36,000 new residents) was due primarily to new births.
A separate report by the Brookings Institution estimates that the United States saw a net decline in immigration during calendar year 2025. “Specifically, we estimate that net migration was between -295,000 and -10,000 for the year,” it said.
This is more than just a piece of trivia. The Congressional Budget Office predicts immigration will “become an increasingly important source of population growth in the coming years …” It predicts that by 2030, annual deaths will begin to outnumber births in the U.S., and the population will begin to shrink. That’s only four years away.
Change needed
Unless, that is, things begin to change. There is nothing inevitable about any of this. What is needed, however, is a recognition of the importance of families and the incredible resources that immigrants bring to the country. That narrative seems to have been drowned out lately, or it gets pushed aside by a false narrative that says the nation gains only by allowing the best educated or most successful people to immigrate.
The rags-to-riches stories of poor immigrants who rise to wealth and fame didn’t end with Andrew Carnegie in the late 19th century. I’ve written about a number of modern examples in Utah, including Eumbo Kasongo, a Congolese man who had been kidnapped as a child by a gang of rebels and who came here as a refugee without money, education or skills.
The last time I talked to him, he was a surgical technician at St. Mark’s Hospital.
A paper by social demographer Charles Hirschman, published by the National Library of Medicine, outlined the attributes many such immigrants bring, including “a resilience and determination to succeed, a curiosity and openness to innovation born of marginality, and an attraction to high-risk pursuits (because conventional careers are less open to them).”
Immigration has long been a major part of the secret sauce that keeps America’s economy humming. With populations declining in many countries, and with the birthrate teetering, the U.S. should be opening its doors, not closing them, to more legal immigration.
I’m certainly not advocating for open borders, but the tactics of ICE agents, the visa revocations and the recent decision to suspend processing visas for people from 75 countries has sent a strong message to the world that even legal immigrants are not welcome. That could be economic suicide.
The demographic hotline keeps ringing. Will we wake up?
