1 THE END OF THE MIGRATORY “BONANZA”

At the beginning of 2026, the United States reached a demographic watershed with possible implications for its economic hegemony: for the first time in more than half a century, net migration to the country may have become negative. According to data reported by the Washington Post and preliminary analysis by the Brookings Institution, the flow of migration, which historically acted as the engine of expansion of the American workforce, suffered an abrupt reversal under the Trump administration, resulting in an estimated net loss of hundreds of thousands of individuals in just one year. According to the Washington Post, this phenomenon is not accidental, but rather the direct result of a rigorous execution of campaign promises, which include mass deportations, the expansion of visa restrictions, and unprecedented border enforcement. Brookings researchers, in turn, reinforce that the slowdown in migration flows to the United States in 2025 is mainly a result of humanitarian programs, conditional release for refugees, and the southwest border route, although deportations and other departures receive more media attention. They also suggest that net immigration likely ranged between -295,000 and -10,000 in 2025, and for 2026, the projection indicates that it will likely range between -925,000 and +185,000.

In this sense, the Trump administration has so far been very successful in its goal of drastically reducing the foreign presence, since about one-fifth of immigrants who previously had legal access to the country now face insurmountable barriers. However, the core of the proposed discussion lies in the possible economic consequences of this retraction. The massive departure of immigrants, coupled with the blocking of new flows, could generate a critical vacuum in the labor market. Sectors dependent on intensive labor, such as construction, agriculture, the service sector, and elderly care, may face shortages that threaten to stagnate productivity and raise operating costs nationwide. Furthermore, Brookings' analysis projects a future of macroeconomic uncertainty, highlighting the clash between the ideology of sovereign control and demographic reality. With the rapidly aging native population, the study suggests that the absence of foreign workers to replenish the workforce and sustain domestic consumption could lead to reduced GDP growth and persistent inflationary pressures.

2 MACROECONOMIC IMPACT: THE “ROOF” OF GROWTH

The strong employment growth observed between 2022 and 2024 was largely due to migration flows, which balanced the availability of workers with the new demand for goods and services. However, according to the aforementioned Brookings report, the current population growth rate has reduced the so-called “equilibrium employment growth.” Estimates indicate that the level needed to stabilize unemployment has fallen from a range of between 20,000 and 50,000 jobs per month (at the end of 2025) to a possible scenario of contraction in 2026. This movement should also slow down the economy, subtracting between US$60 billion and US$110 billion from total consumption over the next two years.

Therefore, while the period from 2021 to 2024 was marked by robust GDP growth driven by the supply of foreign labor, the question turns to how the economic scenario of the United States in 2026 projects itself based on the experience of negative net immigration in 2025.

In these terms, we seek to assess how the transition to negative net immigration imposes an artificial roof on the growth of the United States, challenging the sustainability of vital sectors and forcing a reassessment of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) long-term projections on the solvency and vitality of the American economy. The report released in early 2024 entitled "The Demographic Outlook: 2024 to 2054," published by the CBO, offered a technical projection on the population evolution of the United States and its economic implications for the next three decades. The document was based on the premise that American demographics were undergoing a structural change, where population growth would become entirely dependent on net immigration from 2040 onwards. This phenomenon stemmed from the projection that deaths would exceed births due to population aging and a decline in the fertility rate, which the agency revised to 1.70 births per woman, a value significantly below the population replacement rate. Regarding economic indicators, the CBO presented data correlating the observed increase in migration flows between 2021 and 2026 with an expansion of the workforce. Through this data, it was estimated that the potential additional workforce would contribute to an increase of approximately 5.2 million people in the economically active population by 2033, which should boost real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by about 0.2 percentage points annually over the next decade. From a fiscal standpoint, the report projected that this dynamic would result in a $1.2 trillion increase in federal revenues by 2034, although it also predicted a $300 billion increase in debt interest-related expenses and mandatory spending.

However, the report did not omit the challenges inherent in this demographic transition. The rapid expansion of the population aged 65 and over, compared to the slower growth of the working-age population, is pointed out as a persistent pressure on the financing of Social Security and Medicare. In addition, the document noted that, in the short term, the integration of new workers could exert moderate downward pressure on average productivity and wages in specific sectors. However, the highlight of the study was to characterize immigration as the central compensating element in the face of native demographic decline, being decisive for the GDP trajectory and fiscal sustainability of the United States in the 2054 horizon.

A prominent Goldman Sachs article, published in February of last year, assessed how the accelerated reduction in immigration flows is redefining the economic dynamics of the United States after the significant increase observed between 2022 and 2024. According to the publication, the period of high immigration boosted job growth through a two-way street, in which immigrants provided the necessary workforce and simultaneously generated demand for goods and services.

The integration of information from Brookings, Goldman Sachs, and CBO reports with current data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveals the US economy at a possible structural inflection point in 2026. The strong growth observed between 2022 and 2024, which was based on the expansion of the workforce through migratory flows, has given way to a scenario where negative net immigration may impose a roof on development.

According to the most recent official data from the BLS, the labor market demonstrates a transition to a more restrained growth rate, without, however, validating the thesis that the equilibrium of the economy now requires a contraction in jobs. For the unemployment rate to remain stable and to satisfactorily absorb new entrants, the market still demands the creation of approximately 70,000 to 100,000 new jobs monthly. Although the Payroll (non-farm payroll) figures have shown moderation, they remain at levels that support economic expansion, distancing themselves from contraction scenarios that would inevitably push unemployment upwards in the long term.

This resilience is accompanied by a labor supply that has not stagnated, as evidenced by the labor force participation rate, which has remained stable at around 62.7%. This percentage reflects a worker base that continues to consistently seek or occupy jobs, challenging the perception that the economically active population has stopped growing. Therefore, the current dynamics of the BLS point to a readjustment of expectations and a controlled slowdown, where the balance between the supply of workers and job creation still presupposes positive and continuous net growth to maintain the health of the occupational scenario.

The demographic transition described by the CBO, marked by a fertility rate of 1.70, was suddenly accelerated by a reversal in the migratory flow, which became negative in 2025 for the first time in decades. As the Brookings' January 2026 update points out, this negative net immigration reduced the economy's equilibrium growth: the level needed to stabilize unemployment, which historically exceeded 100,000 jobs, fell to a range between 20,000 and 50,000 jobs per month, with a tendency to become negative in 2026. BLS reports confirm this pressure, showing a weakened Payroll that, however, does not increase unemployment proportionally, since the base of available workers is in real contraction. In practice, the net outflow of foreigners weakened total consumption and generated inflationary pressures in labor-dependent sectors, challenging long-term economic vitality and invalidating the most optimistic population growth projections previously forecast.

Therefore, in the 2026 scenario, the thesis that immigration acted as the central compensating element for GDP seems valid. With the reversal of this flow, the technical projections of 0.2 percentage point annual expansion in real GDP and an increase of US$1.2 trillion in federal revenues face significant obstacles. What is observed in the current BLS data is an economy that, having lost its external demographic engine, needs to deal with the reality of a declining native workforce, forcing a reassessment of productivity metrics and the solvency of Social Security and Medicare in the face of a visibly more restrained growth horizon.

In this context, immigration policy has become a central point of speculation about labor market resilience, economic dynamics, price and wage pressures, directly influencing monetary policy decisions.

Brookings' study estimates suggest that job growth is expected to remain weak compared to historical patterns, potentially entering negative territory throughout 2026. Consequently, the unemployment rate becomes the most accurate indicator to discern whether labor market weakness stems from cyclical fluctuations, amenable to monetary intervention, or is simply the result of a more restrictive immigration policy. Furthermore, specific sectors of the economy that directly serve the affected immigrant population... Researchers warn that it is crucial to understand that this contraction does not reflect adverse conditions of a traditional economic cycle but represents the “new normal” established under current migration guidelines. Finally, as the economy adjusts to this new reality of labor supply and consumer demand, it is recommended that any adoption of more expansionary monetary policy be conducted with caution, given the structural and not merely cyclical nature of this change.

3 CRITICAL SECTORS AND REGIONAL VULNERABILITIES

The United States economic sector in 2026 faces profound structural challenges in its productive pillars, as the transition to net negative immigration and restrictive immigration policies alter the composition of the labor market. According to data from the American Immigration Council, the resulting labor shortage generates a systemic impact that transcends a simple lack of personnel, manifesting as a significant loss of purchasing power and an increase in operating costs that weakens vital sectors. In agriculture, data from the USDA (Department of Agriculture) indicates a sharp cost crisis, where the difficulty in finding rural workers for harvests and livestock management raises the final price of food, putting pressure on inflation and reducing the competitiveness of American agribusiness in the global market.

This scarcity phenomenon is reflected with equal intensity in the construction sector, where the absence of new entrants into the labor market imposes a roof on the pace of new construction and infrastructure. The reduction in the supply of skilled and manual workers results in chronic delays and increased costs for residential and commercial projects, which ultimately slows investment in fixed capital and directly impacts GDP growth. As highlighted in the 2024 and 2025 projections, the loss of the "two-way street," in which the immigrant was simultaneously a productive force and a consumer, creates a vacuum of supply and demand that affects the vitality of regions dependent on these economic cycles.

In the health sector, vulnerability is even more pronounced due to the accelerated aging population and the low fertility rate mentioned by the CBO. With the population aged 65 and over growing disproportionately to the working-age population, the healthcare and social assistance network faces unsustainable pressure. The lack of support professionals, historically supplied by foreign labor, compromises the provision of essential services and increases the costs of health and social security services, as we mentioned earlier. Ultimately, the integrated assessment of these sectors demonstrates that the decline in migration acts as a barrier to development, forcing a forced readjustment of business models and challenging the country's fiscal sustainability in the coming decades.

The analysis of data published by the BLS in January 2026 corroborates the direct impact of labor shortages on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), reflecting the sectoral vulnerabilities pointed out earlier. According to the most recent report, service and food inflation continues to be pressured by input costs and, mainly, by payroll. In agriculture, the cost crisis detailed by the USDA in the Farm Labor Statistics demonstrates that the lower availability of rural workers has increased the cost of production, which translates into higher prices on the shelves for the final consumer, making it difficult to control inflation targets.

In the housing and construction sector, BLS indices show that the cost of shelter housing remains one of the main components of persistent inflation. This phenomenon is intrinsically linked to the American Immigration Council's thesis, which warns that the drastic reduction in the construction workforce prevents the expansion of housing supply, keeping prices artificially high due to the housing deficit. Simultaneously, the health sector is experiencing an increase in medical care costs, where the shortage of support and nursing professionals forces a wage increase that is passed on to health plans and hospital services, validating the CBO's concerns about long-term fiscal pressure.

Thus, the integration of BLS indicators with economic research sources confirms that the decline in migration in 2026 not only reduced GDP growth but also altered the dynamics of the CPI by creating supply bottlenecks in essential sectors. Increased production costs in agriculture and construction, coupled with pressure on healthcare services, could generate a cost-push inflation cycle that impacts the purchasing power of American families, as predicted in studies on the loss of the two-way street of immigration. Economic sustainability, therefore, faces the challenge of balancing an ageing and reduced workforce with a demand that, while more subdued, faces rising prices for basic services and essential goods.

4 THE NEW BALANCE?

The economic situation in the United States at the beginning of 2026 reveals that the country is going through a structural inflection point, where the transition to negative net immigration redefines the limits of national growth. The reversal of the migratory flow, which previously sustained the expansion of the workforce and the dynamism of consumption, has imposed an artificial "roof" on development, reducing the equilibrium growth level of employment to a range between 20,000 and 50,000 jobs per month, with trends of contraction. This change does not represent just a cyclical fluctuation but establishes a "new normal" that challenges the CBO's long-term projections on fiscal solvency and the vitality of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The labor shortage resulting from these restrictive immigration policies has generated supply bottlenecks in essential productive pillars, such as agriculture, construction, and the health sector. The impact manifests itself in a cost-push inflation cycle, where the difficulty in filling jobs raises operating costs and final prices for food, housing, and medical care, compromising the purchasing power of American families. By losing the external demographic engine that balanced the economy, the country now faces the challenge of sustaining its infrastructure and basic services with a declining and aging native workforce.

The experience of 2025 and 2026, analyzed by the Brookings report, seems to confirm that immigration acted as the central offsetting element for macroeconomic stability and the sustainability of Social Security and Medicare. Faced with the loss of the "two-way street," in which immigrants simultaneously boosted supply and demand, the American economy is forced to readjust its business models and monetary policy. The new economic equilibrium therefore requires cautious management that recognizes the structural nature of this labor shortage, to prevent the weakening of productivity from becoming a permanent obstacle to the country's hegemony and fiscal health.