Metro Monitor 2026: The relationship between immigration and regional economic performance over the past decade

The first year of the second Trump administration has been characterized by a sharp escalation of immigration enforcement. Since January 2025, federal authorities have deported more than half a million people, and preliminary estimates suggest that 2025 may mark the first year in half a century in which more people migrated out of the United States than into it.

Administration officials have framed this enforcement surge as an economic imperative—arguing that reducing immigration will increase wages and job opportunities for American citizens. In a January 2026 press release, the White House credited mass deportations with lowering housing costs and boosting job growth in metropolitan areas with large unauthorized immigrant populations.

Against this backdrop, new population and economic data for U.S. metro areas provide a way to examine the relationship between immigration and economic performance. Using updated data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Brookings’ Metro Monitor, this analysis assesses how the nation’s largest metropolitan economies have performed over the past decade in relation to immigration patterns. Specifically, we ask three questions:

1. How have regional economies with growing immigrant populations performed over the past decade?
2. How is growth in these economies shared across both immigrant and native-born households and families?
3. What are the potential economic consequences of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrant communities?

Through this analysis, we find that the claim that mass deportations advance economic well-being—for native-born workers or for regions overall—is not supported by the data, nor an extensive research literature behind it. Instead, anti-immigration policy poses a material risk to the economic growth potential of the nation’s largest metropolitan economies, and risks dampening or reversing the significant economic progress that these regions have achieved over the past decade.

Economic growth was stronger in regions with rising foreign-born population shares

This year’s Metro Monitor analyzes how economic growth in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas relates to changes in the share of their working-age population that is foreign-born. Specifically, we measure the percentage-point change in the foreign-born share of the working-age population in each metro area between 2014 and 2024.

To examine this relationship, we ranked 196 metro areas based on this change and divided them into four equal groups. Metro areas in the lowest group experienced an average 1.6-percentage-point decline in the foreign-born share of their working-age population between 2014 and 2024, compared to a 4.4-percentage-point increase in the highest group (Map 1).

Through this measure of immigration change, this year’s Metro Monitor data paint a clear picture of the benefit of immigration for metropolitan America’s economic trajectory over the last decade. Metro areas with larger increases in the foreign-born share of their working-age population saw stronger growth in gross metropolitan product (GMP) and employment between 2014 and 2024, as well as in key prosperity metrics such as productivity and wage growth.

The metro areas with the largest increases in their foreign-born population share were geographically diverse, and included several high-growth Sun Belt metro areas (such as Raleigh, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Cape Coral, Fla.), but also select midsized metro areas across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (such as Sioux Falls, S.D., and Fort Collins, Colo.). In aggregate, the economic strength of these high-immigration regions offset the comparatively weaker growth seen across other parts of the Northeast and Midwest, where many metro areas continue to struggle with the impacts of deindustrialization and face slow growth regardless of immigration trends. Even in these metro areas, however, the evidence suggests that higher immigration rates provided an important source of population growth during a period of sustained out-migration by native-born working families, bolstering regional productivity and wage gains.

Given these trends, it is clear that the evidence does not suggest that immigration has stifled regional economic growth. Instead, metro areas with larger increases in their foreign-born workforce share appear to benefit from larger and more diverse talent pools that support stronger growth and productivity.

Improving economic outcomes for foreign-born workers did not diminish economic outcomes for native-born workers

While economists largely agree that immigration provides net benefits to the U.S. economy, opponents contend that high immigration depresses wages and limits job opportunities for working-class families. In a 2017 address, President Trump argued that the U.S. immigration system “depresses wages for [America’s] poorest workers.” The administration reiterated this claim in its January 2026 press release, asserting that “mass deportations [equal] more jobs” for native-born workers.

Data from this year’s Metro Monitor, however, show no evidence that metro areas with larger increases in the foreign-born share of their workforce produce worse labor market outcomes for native-born workers. In fact, the opposite pattern appears. Between 2014 and 2024, employment rates in metro areas with the largest increases in their foreign-born workforce share were nearly 3 percentage points higher for both native-born and foreign-born workers than in metro areas with the smallest foreign-born workforce share increases. Put simply, metro areas with larger increases in the foreign-born share of their workforce tended to deliver stronger employment outcomes for both immigrant and native-born workers.

We find a similar pattern when examining changes in regional median earnings. Metropolitan economies with larger increases in the foreign-born share of their working-age population consistently recorded higher median earnings for both native-born and foreign-born workers. In 2024, the typical native-born worker in these metro areas earned about $3,000 more than a comparable worker in metro areas with lower increases in the foreign-born share of their working-age population (after adjusting for cost of living). Foreign-born workers also have higher median earnings in regions with the largest increases in foreign-born workforce shares

In sum, this year’s Metro Monitor update suggests that native-born workers benefit from greater labor market opportunity in metro areas with growing immigrant populations. Prior research consistently confirms this finding: Immigration increases wages for middle-class, native-born workers and workers in entry-level careers. Previous Brookings research has similarly found that immigration complements native-born workers, improving their ability to move up the income ladder and transition out of careers where they are more likely to compete with immigrant labor.

Metropolitan America thrives because of foreign-born workers—not in spite of it

The possibility that the United States may be entering a new era of negative net international migration is cause for concern, not celebration. Data from this year’s Metro Monitor—alongside decades of rigorous research—show that metro areas with increasing foreign-born population shares have experienced stronger economic growth, higher productivity, and better labor market outcomes for both immigrant and native-born workers. We find no evidence in the data that immigration undercuts economic dynamism or erodes economic opportunity; if anything, the opposite pattern emerges.

Policies that sharply reduce immigration risk undermining this economic prosperity. Early estimates suggest that the federal immigration enforcement surge could shrink the nation’s workforce by more than 2.4 million people and reduce national gross domestic product (GDP) by more than 7% by 2028.

The consequences will be felt most acutely in metropolitan economies, which account for 78% of the nation’s jobs and 84% of its economic output. Sustaining the growth and opportunity these regions generate will require federal and regional leaders to recognize immigration as a key driver of economic vitality—and to pursue policies that strengthen, rather than restrict, the flow of talent that helps fuel growth and expand prosperity.