What Changed, and When
The decline is recent enough that annual totals do not yet capture it. Monthly and category-level issuance data show where it is concentrated.
Year-over-year change in visa issuance
Source: Niskanen Center compilation of State Department issuance data[2]
| Measure | Date | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| FY2026 refugee ceiling set at 7,500 | Oct 2025 | Presidential determination[4] |
| Diversity Visa Program suspended | Dec 18, 2025 | Executive directive[3] |
| Consular immigrant visa pause, 75 countries | Jan 14, 2026 | State Department announcement[2] |
| H-1B selection weighted by wage level | Feb 27, 2026 | DHS final rule[5] |
| Statutory changes to immigration levels | None | - |
Sources: Federal Register[5]; State Department[3]; presidential determinations[4]
Why the Instrument Matters
A reduction achieved by directive and a reduction achieved by statute produce the same number in a given year and behave differently over time. Housing supply responds to construction decisions made years in advance, and builders price in the demand they expect to exist when a project completes, not the demand that exists when it breaks ground.
The Diversity Visa example
The Diversity Visa Program has been suspended since December 18, 2025, and no diversity visas are being issued.[3] The program is established in statute at INA Section 203(c). A suspension pauses it; ending it requires Congress. The same holds for the consular pause, the refugee ceiling, and the H-1B selection rule. Each can be lifted by the same instrument that imposed it, on any future date, without a vote.
This is not a criticism of the measures. It is an observation about what they can accomplish. A builder deciding whether to start a 200-unit project in 2027 is making a bet on demand in 2029 and 2030. A policy that can be reversed by proclamation in the interval does not change that calculation. A ten-year statutory reduction with a defined level and a defined reassessment date does.
Policy Connection
Policy 2 of the Act proposes a 90% reduction across all immigration categories for 10 years, followed by reassessment against housing availability and wage data. Current federal action has moved in the same direction without any of those three properties: no defined level, no defined duration, and no defined test for when it ends.
See the scorecard for how this compares across all five policies, and Immigration and Housing for the supply analysis behind the 90% figure.
Sources & Methodology
- DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics: Lawful Permanent Residents Annual Flow Reports - New lawful permanent residents by fiscal year, including 1,364,090 in FY2024, 1,172,910 in FY2023, and 1,018,350 in FY2022
- Niskanen Center: Legal Immigration in Numbers - Year-over-year visa issuance by category, compiled from State Department monthly issuance statistics
- U.S. Department of State: Diversity Visa Program - Program status and registration schedule. The program is established by statute at INA Section 203(c)
- Federal Register: Emergency Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2026 - Raises the FY2026 refugee ceiling from 7,500 to 17,500
- Federal Register: Weighted Selection Process for Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions - DHS final rule replacing random selection with wage-level weighting, effective February 27, 2026
Methodology note
Lawful permanent resident totals are fiscal-year counts of persons obtaining LPR status and include both new arrivals and adjustments of status from within the United States. They are not a count of border crossings or of total foreign-born population change. The FY2025 figure is preliminary and subject to revision in the final annual flow report. Year-over-year issuance changes are drawn from monthly consular data and cover different comparison windows by category, so they are reported as approximate. The article describes the legal instrument behind each measure and does not assess the merits of any of them.