California’s population stalled in 2024-25 and growth across the country slowed amid widespread immigration raids in the first year of the new Trump administration, U.S. Census Bureau data show.
After years of slow growth in the post pandemic era, California’s population stayed essentially flat from July 2024 to July 2025, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. At the same time, the data show that the United States’ population grew by only half a percent, or roughly 1.8 million people, a much lower rate than the previous year when it increased by 3.2 million people.
Experts attribute the stagnation largely to lower levels of migration to the United States from other countries as the Trump administration has sought to curtail immigration and embarked on deportation efforts in Los Angeles and other major cities. The foreign-born population in the U.S. dropped by 1.5 million people, or 2.6%, from January to July last year, data show.
In California, changing immigration policies, along with people leaving the Golden State for other places, an aging population and declining birth rates all contribute to the population slump. Continued drops in immigration could have long-term implications for California, said Dowell Myers, a professor of policy planning and demography at USC.
“It’s a very volatile period right now, especially with regard to immigration,” he said. “There’s no policy changes that can change aging or even birth rates — you really can’t move those — but immigration is the one thing you could change. Immigration was a real stopgap for us because it provides a fresh supply of workers that we need. We can’t fill our all of our job vacancies so we rely on immigration.”
In the last 125 years, the lowest growth rate in the U.S. was in 2021, when the population grew by just 0.16%, or 522,000 people, and net international migration was just 376,000 people because of travel restrictions into the U.S. early in the pandemic. Before that, the lowest population growth rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 at the height of the Spanish flu.
Net international migration to the U.S. peaked in 2024, with 2.7 million more people arriving from abroad than leaving for other countries, according to census data.
Last year, that number declined by more than half. From July 2024 to July 2025, only 1.3 million more people moved to the U.S. than those who moved away. The Census Bureau projected that the trend would continue, with net international migration of just 321,000 people in 2026. Census estimates are eventually trending toward negative net migration, where more people leave the U.S. than arrive.
“If those trends continue, it would be the first time the United States has seen net negative migration in more than 50 years,” the Census Bureau wrote.
In California, where population growth is lagging behind much of the rest of the nation, the California Department of Finance projected last year that sluggish growth would continue as international arrivals decreased.
“This is not necessarily good for the economy because population growth means labor force growth,” said Jan Brueckner, an emeritus professor of economics at UC Irvine. “If the population growth is negative or has depressed then there’s a labor force issue and many employers of unskilled workers are feeling the pinch.”
The Finance Department pointed to the Trump administration’s termination of most humanitarian migration programs as a factor in slowing California’s population growth. But the state’s high cost of living and lack of affordable housing stock also has driven out Californians.
Over the last few years, California — the most populous state in the country — has recorded more people leaving for other states such as Texas and Arizona than it gains from internal migration. Myers projects that based on current trends, Texas’ population will be as large as California’s in a little more than 19 years.
International immigrants, who now mostly come from Asia, have bolstered California’s population against the loss from those who leave for other states.
The Golden State’s population struggles have dogged Gov. Gavin Newsom, with critics blaming him for the affordability crisis that’s pushed people out of the state. Newsom has pushed back on these claims, noting that 10 other states experienced bigger proportional population losses during the California exodus.
Still, losing Californians to other places is going to negatively affect the future of the state, Myers said.
“We want to reduce our net outflow of migrants and hold on to the Californians that we got, especially the ones that were raised in California schools,” he said. “We don’t want them to go away because we’ve made investment in those young people. They can get jobs, but they can’t get housing so housing is really the biggest threat for our future.”