The U.S. Census Bureau has inadvertently put its data-filled finger on exactly why Democrats are fighting so savagely to keep illegal aliens in the U.S., and why Republicans can never, ever cave on mass deportations — even as messaging must improve.
The report is the normally bland fare from the Census Bureau geeks, but the conclusions are inescapable. Almost all of the major Democratic metro areas lost people or experienced flat numbers from July 2024 to July 2025, which Axios ruefully described as a "massive drop in immigration."
And note that the date range shows only the first half of President Trump's first year, and still includes the last half of the dark Biden years. These numbers will get much worse for Democrats in the next report, with a full year of a closed border and deportations. And you bet they know it.
Here is the report's nut paragraph:
"These shifts were largely due to lower levels of net international migration (NIM), which declined nationwide. Nine out of 10 U.S. counties experienced lower NIM levels between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, compared to the year prior. The one in 10 counties that did not see a drop in international migration did not see an increase either. Some of the country's most populous counties experienced the greatest impacts from lower NIM."
Now, of course, the Census Bureau's "net international migration" term is a euphemism for mostly illegal aliens. A whole lot more illegals were leaving the U.S. in those first six months than arriving, which has continued since then.
This demonstrates how the big Democrat jurisdictions in our nation have been heavily reliant on the mostly illegal alien train from Third World countries to keep their struggling populations looking healthier.
Why do they need to do that? Because the rest of the report explains these same counties have for years continuously experienced "negative net domestic migration — more people moving out than moving in from other areas of the country. Coupled with reduced NIM, the result was slower growth or, in some cases, population decline."
Translated: Actual Americans in these increasingly dangerous, expensive, and dysfunctional metro areas are fleeing to other jurisdictions. And the illegal alien network is no longer propping them up.
The winners? As makes intuitive sense, Americans are moving to Republican jurisdictions that have low or no taxes, fewer regulations, stronger crime enforcement, better schools, homelessness under control, better infrastructure, and a higher overall quality of life for most people.
This has a two-fold impact on Democrats' electoral power. First, of course, illegals are counted in the Census data, meaning that all of these, particularly sanctuary jurisdictions, have more Congressional representation than they should, as illegals gravitate to them en masse.
The Heritage Foundation is among many that have crunched the numbers to make it clear: "Democratic-controlled states have gained congressional seats by welcoming and harboring illegal aliens. This warped representation is carried over into the Electoral College."
Second, it has become crystal clear how much federal money for projects and programs in Democratic cities disappears into the cauldrons of their political pockets to be used for future elections. Little Somalia, Minnesota, is the prime example, and this one includes sending our stolen tax money to foreign terrorist organizations, but we've seen this happening all over the country since that was originally exposed by actual journalistic work.
This puts hard data to the explanation of why Democrats are so extreme and shrill over deportations and will fight everyone, even for the bad guys, because it ties up resources that could otherwise be used for more mass deportations. It also creates optics that a lot of Americans who favor mass deportations become squirmy over.
The fewer people who are here who should not be, the less power Democrats have.
And it makes clear why Republicans can never, ever step back from mass deportations. Messaging should be just going after the bad guys, but we need to keep the pressure up on all of the illegals to leave, using every means, including carrots and sticks.
Rod Thomson is a former daily newspaper reporter and columnist, Salem radio host and ABC TV commentator, and current Founder of The Thomson Group, a Florida-based political consulting firm. He has eight children, seven grandchildren, and a rapacious hunger to fight for America on their behalf. Follow him on Twitter at @Rod_Thomson. Email him at [email protected].
