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Thousands of people protest against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies on Feb. 2, 2025, at Hermann Park in Houston.<\/p>\n
Raquel Natalicchio\/Staff photographer<\/p>\n
Harris County and the greater Houston area led the U.S. in population growth last year, though President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown<\/a> tempered gains across the country,<\/a>\u00a0according to new population estimates released Thursday\u00a0by the U.S. Census Bureau.<\/p>\n Houston and Harris County were not untouched by national trends. Despite adding nearly 49,000 residents in 2025 \u2014 more than any other county in America \u2014 Harris County grew by less than half of what it did in 2024.<\/p>\n The Houston metropolitan area grew by nearly 127,000 people in 2025, about one-third less than the year prior. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Other urban areas across the country saw even steeper declines. Major counties in and around New York, Los Angeles, Miami and other cities saw population declines in the thousands. Experts say the losses stem from a reduction in international migration owing to changes in federal immigration policy under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n “The nation\u2019s largest counties like those in the New York metro area are often international migration hubs, gaining large numbers of international migrants and losing people that move to other parts of the country via domestic migration,\u201d said George M. Hayward, a Census Bureau demographer, in a statement. “With fewer gains from international migration, these types of counties saw their population growth diminish or even turn into loss.\u201d<\/p>\n Migration plummets<\/p>\n Like other major urban counties, Harris County\u00a0loses more residents than it gains from other parts of America each year through a process known as “domestic migration.” As the county’s birth rate starts to level off, it has become increasingly reliant on “international migration,” the third component of population change, to continue growing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Last year, Harris County’s net “natural change,” or the difference between births and deaths, was lower than the number of people who left the county. That means that without immigration, the county’s population would have dropped by thousands for the first time in recent memory.<\/p>\n The estimates released by the Census Bureau on Thursday represent the populations for American counties and metropolitan areas as of July 1, 2025. Dan Potter, director of the Houston Population Research Center at\u00a0Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, said that immigration levels were so high in years prior that no amount of change in federal policy would be able to stem the flow of people immediately.<\/p>\n Still, the sharp decrease in international migration \u2014 which includes returning members of the Armed Forces and other citizens living abroad \u2014 indicates that Trump’s immigration crackdown is already having immediate effects. Since retaking office at the start of last year, Trump has essentially closed the\u00a0border to new arrivals and tamped down\u00a0on other forms of legal immigration, while embarking on a mass deportation campaign to remove millions of immigrants already living in the country illegally.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n READ MORE:\u00a0Texas led U.S. in population growth in 2025, but gains slowed amid Trump immigration crackdown<\/a><\/p>\n Potter said he expects Harris County’s growth to continue to slow down over the course of Trump’s presidency.<\/p>\n “This feels like Act I of a three-act play,” Potter said. “There was so much momentum going into 2025 … and you can’t turn that flow off overnight, no matter what policy positions you start rolling out. But (the data) does seem to be signaling that there was an absolute slowdown happening by the end of June.”<\/p>\n Suburban Houston counties rely more heavily on domestic migration\u00a0\u2014 often from Houston itself\u00a0\u2014\u00a0to boost their population. But growth in the Houston area as a whole slowed as a result of declining international migration\u00a0as well, albeit to a lesser extent than Harris County alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n Future uncertain<\/p>\n Some experts believe that Trump’s immigration policies are merely accelerating an inevitable population decline<\/a> due to\u00a0falling birth rates. The Congressional Budget Office has already predicted that deaths will start to outnumber births<\/a> in the United States by 2033, leaving international migration as the nation’s lone source of population growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n But a sudden drop-off in growth can have serious consequences for a region that has been planning for expansion well into the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n Potter pointed out that\u00a0budgetary decisions have already been made<\/a> based on population projections that were made during Houston’s boom years. If those numbers start to fall, schools would have to close<\/a>, the workforce would shrink and tax revenue for public safety and infrastructure would decline.\u00a0<\/p>\n