{"id":548375,"date":"2026-01-28T04:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/548375\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T04:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:28:15","slug":"illinois-population-stays-flat-as-international-immigration-drops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/548375\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois population stays flat as international immigration drops"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illinois\u2019 population stayed fairly flat into 2025, following a national trend of low growth due to a historic decrease in net international immigration, according to new figures released on Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.\n<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s population increased by 16,108, or 0.001%<\/a>, to 12,719,141, from July 2024 to July 2025, keeping it the sixth most populous state.\n<\/p>\n

Nationwide, the population grew by 1.8 million, or 0.5%, the slowest rate since the historically low growth rate of 0.2% during the COVID pandemic in 2021. The slowdown also comes after a bump in growth in 2024, when the country added 3 million people and grew by 1%, the fastest annual population growth rate since 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today,\u201d said Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for estimates and projections at the Census Bureau.\n<\/p>\n

Net international migration was 1.3 million, a drop of more than half<\/a> from 2.7 million the year before, due primarily to the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown on immigration, experts said. If current trends continue, net international migration is projected to drop by 1 million more by July 2026.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big story nationally is about international immigration being down,\u201d said Christine Percheski, associate professor of sociology and faculty fellow at Northwestern University\u2019s Institute for Policy Research\u00a0in Evanston. \u201cWe see that in Illinois as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople walk along North Michigan Avenue while snow falls on Jan. 25, 2026, in Chicago’s Loop. The state\u2019s population increased slightly from July 2024 to July 2025, keeping it the sixth most populous state. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

While Illinois has typically had more residents move out to other states than move in in recent years, international immigration has made up for most of the loss.<\/p>\n

But with the administration of President Donald Trump restricting legal immigration<\/a> and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection ramping up arrests of people accused of illegal immigration, fewer foreigners are arriving.<\/p>\n

\u201cPopulation growing or shrinking isn\u2019t necessarily bad, it\u2019s about how we respond,\u201d Percheski\u00a0 said. \u201cStability is fine. It\u2019s really big changes in population in a short time that creates big challenges. But we\u2019ve been seeing modest changes in Illinois for quite a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Midwest was the only region where all states gained population. After experiencing population decline in 2021 and small growth in 2022, the Midwest\u2019s population grew solidly in the past three years, census officials said.<\/p>\n

The Midwest also saw slightly positive net domestic migration for the first time this decade \u2014 a turnaround from substantial losses in 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

South Carolina was the fastest-growing state, gaining almost 80,000, driven by domestic net migration, followed by Idaho, North Carolina, Texas and Utah.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The immigration crackdown is likely to deter more immigrants from participating in the census, reducing federal funding to the state for essentials like roads, schools and libraries, said Dr. Kathleen Yang-Clayton, senior visiting scholar and civic invitation fellow at the Chaddick Institute at DePaul University in Chicago.\n<\/p>\n

She urged working now to gain immigrants\u2019 trust in participating in the census.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hard-to-count folks are most impacted by an undercount,\u201d she said. \u201cIn the end, laying eyes on people \u2026 is going to take a lot more trust because of what\u2019s happening with ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illinois\u2019 population stayed fairly flat into 2025, following a national trend of low growth due to a historic…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":548376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[77806,960,5386,1818,240953,409,240954],"class_list":["post-548375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-census","tag-chicago","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-illinois-population","tag-immigration","tag-low-growth"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115970841404950099","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}