"In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded. In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s" [1].
Foreign born went from 4.7% of the population, to an modern high of 15.8% and has slightly backed off to 15.4% in the last year. So we are within .4 of the high point.
I'm not saying we don't have a ton of immigration. But immigration generally booms when the job market is strong. We aren't currently seeing an anomaly; the job market is weak and immigration is down.
The absolute level remains historically, though not unprecedentedly, high. But that's part of a 50-year trend that I am sceptical explains a <5-year change specific to software development.
> Doesn't change the fact that H1-Bers have turned the US IT job market harmfully hyper-competitive for US citizens
Sure, maybe. I don't know. I don't think that explains why "since the widespread adoption of generative AI, early-career workers (ages 22-25) in the most AI-exposed occupations have experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment even after controlling for firm-level shocks. In contrast, employment for workers in less exposed fields and more experienced workers in the same occupations has remained stable or continued to grow" [1].
Unless the ratio of H1Bs in these fields to recent-college graduates has exploded in the last 5 years, immigration is not a sufficient explanation for the effect.
"In January 2025, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the United States – the largest number ever recorded. In the ensuing months, however, more immigrants left the country or were deported than arrived. By June, the country’s foreign-born population had shrunk by more than a million people, marking its first decline since the 1960s" [1].
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-findi...