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The numbers are in, and they’re telling a complicated story. State Department data shows that visa approvals dropped 11 percent in the first eight months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. That’s roughly a quarter million fewer visas issued. On the surface, it looks like the Trump administration is delivering on its promise to tighten immigration. But dig deeper, and a more troubling picture emerges—one where national security concerns are being addressed while the economic forces driving mass migration remain largely untouched.
“Is this better than it was before? Yes. Is it what it should be? No,” Rosemary Jenks, founder of the Immigration Accountability Project, told Breitbart News. “You know, glass half full.” Jenks’s assessment cuts through the administration’s talking points to reveal a fundamental tension in Trump’s immigration policy: the gap between what the base demands and what the donor class will allow.
The 11 percent decline isn’t the result of a comprehensive strategy to reduce immigration numbers. According to Jenks, it stems primarily from enhanced security vetting and travel bans targeting dangerous regions—not from any systematic effort to protect American workers from wage-depressing foreign competition. “The donor class is well represented in the Trump administration, and that’s why we see the increase in temporary workers,” Jenks explained. The message is clear: some immigration is being restricted, but the pipeline of cheap labor remains open for business.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention. The same tech executives who publicly celebrate Trump’s economic policies privately lobby for more H-1B visas to import cheaper tech workers. The same agricultural interests that benefit from tariff relief want unlimited guest workers to keep wages low in the fields. And the same construction companies building the border wall still want to hire illegal labor when nobody’s looking. The swamp doesn’t drain easily, especially when it’s filled with campaign donors.
Jenks’s warning is worth heeding: “American workers are not being slammed to the same degree that they were under Biden. Does that mean they’re not being slammed? No, they still are.” This is the reality that gets lost in partisan cheering. Yes, the border is more secure than it was under the Biden administration’s open-borders catastrophe. Yes, deportations are up and illegal crossings are down. But the legal immigration system continues to operate as a mechanism for transferring wealth from American workers to corporate interests.
The data reveals some genuinely positive trends. Foreign student numbers are down, which means fewer visa overstays and less competition for college admissions. The diversity visa lottery—that absurd program that hands out green cards by random chance—continues to operate but faces increasing scrutiny. And the overall reduction in visa approvals, even if driven by security rather than economic policy, still represents fewer people competing for jobs and housing in an already strained economy.
But the fundamental problem persists. The United States issues over a million green cards annually, plus millions more temporary work visas, student visas, and guest worker permits. This massive influx of foreign labor suppresses wages, strains social services, and transforms communities without the consent of the people who live there. Trump promised to change this dynamic, and while he’s made progress on illegal immigration, the legal side of the equation remains largely untouched.
Jenks is right that Americans need to pressure Congress to act. The White House can only do so much through executive action. Real reform requires legislation to eliminate the diversity visa lottery, slash chain migration, and mandate E-Verify for all employers. But Congress has been paralyzed on immigration for decades, caught between a Democratic Party that wants open borders and a Republican Party too beholden to business interests to prioritize workers.
The glass half full perspective is that Trump has at least stopped the bleeding at the border and begun reversing the worst excesses of the Biden era. The glass half empty perspective is that without fundamental reform of the legal immigration system, American workers will continue to face displacement and wage stagnation. Both perspectives are true, and both matter.
Trump’s base didn’t elect him to tinker around the edges of immigration policy. They elected him to put America first—to secure the border, deport illegal immigrants, and reform a broken system that serves everyone except the American people. The 11 percent decline is a start, but it’s not the transformation voters were promised. The donor class may be satisfied with cosmetic changes, but the American worker deserves better.
The job is far from done.
Providence favors the diligent.
via Breitbart
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