Newly released Census Bureau figures show a notable 2025 decline in U.S./Mexican border metro area population growth rate, compared with where things stood the year before.
The three metro areas described by the Census Bureau as have the “steepest percentage point declines” include Laredo, Texas, with a growth rate drop of 3%; El Centro, California, off by half a percentage point; and Yuma, Arizona, down by nearly 2%.
The Bureau report chalks the growth rate decline to the lower levels of net international migration, which was also on the decline in general nationally.
Overall, says the report, roughly 80% of some 2,066 counties that recorded growth rates two years ago were on the downside in 2025.
“Some of the country’s most populous counties experienced the greatest impacts from lower net international migration,” notes the report, adding that while many of those same counties had higher birth than death rates, they also experienced negative migration rates due to people moving to other parts of the country.
“The nation’s 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,” remarked George Hayward, a Census Bureau demographer, in a statement.
Hayward added that “with fewer gains from international migration, these types of counties saw their popular growth diminish or even turn into loss.”
In all, international migration across all urban areas dropped from nearly 2 million in 2024 to some 932,000 last year.
According to a New York Times analysis of the new Census figures, net migration was down by well over 50% in eastern and central Arizona, central and southern New Mexico, and central and northern Colorado.
Where the numbers will ultimately lead, asserts an essay published by the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, may prove particularly challenging depending upon location.
“At the state level, domestic migration and natural change will become more central to population growth in 2026,” states the essay by research analyst Riordan Frost.
“Many states, especially in the Sunbelt and Mountain West, will be able to rely on these factors to sustain growth,” continues Frost, “but states that have depended heavily on immigration in recent years may soon face the prospect of population loss.”
March 31, 2026
By Garry Boulard
Graphic courtesy of Pixabay
