New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that several California counties were among the hardest hit by population losses in 2025 — part of a broader national trend that saw roughly four in 10 U.S. counties shrink between July 2024 and July 2025.
Los Angeles County declined the most of any county in the country by raw numbers, losing nearly 54,000 residents over the data period, even as it remains the largest county in the United States by more than 4.5 million people. San Diego and Orange counties also made the unenviable list of counties that ranked in the top 10 both by total population and by numeric decline.
El Centro, a small metro area in Imperial County along California’s border with Mexico, saw one of the sharpest percentage swings in the nation. The area went from growing by 1.2% in 2023 to shrinking by 0.7% in 2024 — a drop of 1.9 percentage points, matching Yuma, Arizona, for the second-largest decline of its kind in the country. Only Laredo, Texas, fell faster, losing 3 percentage points of growth.
The Census Bureau pointed to a sharp drop in net international migration as the main engine behind the losses. Nine out of 10 counties saw lower net international migration from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025.
According to The Hill, Census Bureau demographer George M. Hayward explained the dynamic this way: “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.”
“With fewer gains from international migration, these types of counties saw their population growth diminish or even turn into loss,” Hayward added.
The data covers the final six-plus months of former President Biden’s term and the first five-plus months of President Trump’s second term. That means the full impact of the administration’s accelerated deportation push is not yet fully reflected in the numbers.
Kristi Noem, the former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said in a January statement that “nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the U.S. because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, including an estimated 2.2 million self-deportations and more than 675,000 deportations” during President Trump’s first year back in office.
Bloomberg reported that the number of counties losing residents is nearly 20% higher than it was in the same period a year earlier — a significant acceleration of a trend that was already underway.
The national birth rate did tick up by 1% from 2023 to 2024, but it remains well below levels seen in the second half of the 20th century. In response, President Trump and Republican lawmakers have pushed family-focused policies. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law last July, raised the child tax credit from $2,000 per child to $2,200 per child and created new children’s investment accounts — dubbed “Trump Accounts” — according to the IRS. The Treasury Department will contribute $1,000 to accounts opened for children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028.
While California and other large coastal states shed residents, states along the southeast coast continued to grow rapidly. Nine of the 10 fastest-growing counties with populations above 20,000 were concentrated in the South. Jasper County, South Carolina, led the nation with 6% population growth over the data period, and Florida’s Ocala metro area topped all metro areas nationally with 3.4% growth.
The ongoing migration from blue states like California to red states in the South is raising questions about future congressional representation. Population projections for 2030 suggest some Democratic-led states could lose seats in the House of Representatives, while Republican-held states could gain them.
Newly confirmed DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has signaled some openness to adjustments in immigration enforcement policy, though the direction and pace of those changes remains unclear.
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