David J. Bier discusses his blog post, “Trump Has Cut Legal Immigration More Than Illegal Immigration,” on PBS NewsHour April 14, 2026

PBS NewsHour has @davidjbier.bsky.social on to talk about Trump's push against legal immigration

Immigrants Pay More In Taxes Than the Average Person America’s tax revenues would suffer severely from banning immigration. The primary reason that immigrants pay more in taxes than the average person is that they are far more likely to be employed than...

Yes, even illegal immigrants generated lots of taxes, and these figures do not include the increase in tax revenues that come from how much immigrants increase the productivity of the US workforce. www.cato.org/blog/immigra...

Immigrants are generating above-average revenues for most tax types.

Immigrants Pay More In Taxes Than the Average Person: They get paid lower wages per hour, but they work collectively so many more hours that over the last 30 years, the average immigrant paid ~$100K more in taxes than the average person. cato.org/blog/immigra...

Is the Government Using Counterterrorism Surveillance Tools to Surveil American Companies? Section 702 surveillance and parallel construction may be quietly driving aggressive ICE workplace raids, hiding constitutional violations from workers and businesses.

Another potential #FISA Section 702 attack vector on constitutional rights. My latest, out now via @justsecurity.org

Good!

Trump Has Cut Legal Immigration More Than Illegal Immigration It is not about stopping “illegal” immigration. It is a broader assault on all types of immigration.

It doesn't matter what category of legal immigration. Trump has cut it all, even banning half of all legal immigrant spouses and minor children of US citizens. Follow our research. Even the president of the United States does! www.cato.org/blog/trump-h...

Even President Trump knows that @cato.org puts out the most rigorous and intellectually honest immigration research. Thank you for the citation, Mr. President. However, the disaster at the border was not from *legal* immigrants. They were a good solution to the disaster.

Few Americans paid attention to this aspect of Trump's agenda, but it was predictable (and predicted by me) that this would happen. Trump is arguably the most anti-legal immigration president ever. Congress should stop him before the damage is permanent. www.cato.org/blog/trump-h...

When you add it all up, the collapse in immigration looks like this: a decline of roughly 50K for illegal (even including the people arrested and not released) and a decline of about 132K for legal. Over 70% of the cut in immigration has come from LEGAL immigration.

H-1B visas for skilled workers are also down, largely because Trump imposed a $100K fee to hire any H-1B worker entering from abroad. Most H-1B visas issued abroad are renewals, so the decline for new visas was likely closer to 90%.

Visas for international students were down 40% last summer, thanks to a slew of policies designed to throttle visa issuances and scare off students. Students from 40 countries are now outright banned.

Temporary K visas for spouses and fiancé(e)s of US citizens (and their children) were down 65% in 2025.

We don't have the most up-to-date data for immigrant visas (mostly for family members of US citizens entering for permanent residence), but the trend was down, and then Trump and the State Dept banned nearly half of all immigrant visas starting in January 2026.

It's not just asylum. Trump has cut the refugee program by about 90%. This program is for persecuted people (mainly Christians under Biden) who were vetted abroad and entered legally with a path to permanent residence. Trump immediately gutted the program.

Meanwhile, LEGAL entries by people requesting asylum at ports of entry fell 99.9% under President Trump's 2nd term. That decline alone is greater than the decline from the drop in illegal entries, measured as Border Patrol arrests or releases, but the attack on legal entries doesn't stop there...

Of the decline in Border Patrol arrests from their peak, 83% occurred under Biden. Of the decline in Border Patrol releases, 96% occurred under Biden. Illegal immigration was lower when Trump came into office than when he left office. www.cato.org/blog/trump-h...

https://www.cato.org/blog/trump-has-cut-legal-immigration-more-illegal-immigration

Trump has cut legal immigration more than illegal immigration, as I predicted. While illegal entries have fallen, they continued a prior trend, falling more before he came back. Meanwhile, Trump has drastically cut legal entries, reversing the prior upward trend. www.cato.org/blog/trump-h...

E Pluribus Unum is not English. Are they going to be against that too?

Oh wait…

Wow!

More constitutional violations

The head of America's Border Patrol interior operations, selected by Stephen Miller, says on camera he wanted 100 million deportations, removal of one third of America.

"100 MILLION HAVE GOT TO GO!" I believe I will go down as the first person to testify explicitly in opposition to the plan to deport 100 million people from America.

Foreigners can't come to America with a drug conviction, but you can shoot foreigners with a drug conviction.

The litmus test for any prosecutor in America, delivered by Philadelphia's Larry Krasner: I will prosecute ICE crimes

Perfect example of the institutions causing the culture. No one did this before Apple made it difficult to use cheap plug in headphones… unless I’m forgetting something

What are the most negative trends in American culture from your perspective?

Trump: I’m going to put ICE in the airports, where they will target and arrest all the illegals, especially Somalis, because I hate the Democrats

Headlines: Trump puts ICE officers in airports to ease long lines, provide relief for weary travelers

The lunatic messages continue daily

Trump’s DOJ purged the Board of Immigration Appeals of anyone deemed too likely to vote in favor of an immigrant facing removal. The result has been a rubber stamp, one so obvious that the admin is actually trying to get rid of it almost entirely and just replace it with an automatic denial system.