President Donald Trump’s social media team celebrated a New York Times report published Sunday showing that the administration has slashed the number of legal immigrants allowed into the United States by half.
According to the Times, the State Department issued just 26,000 immigrant visas in February, citing the most recent available government data. Those visas grant recipients a green card and legal permanent resident status. By comparison, an average of 52,000 immigrant visas were issued each month in the years before Trump took office.
The Times reported that the administration’s policies, which took effect late last year and early this year, made immigrating from 91 countries all but impossible and cut the number of immigrant visas available in another 61 countries.
Africa and the Middle East were hit particularly hard by the changes, the report found, and immigration from Muslim-majority countries plunged by more than 90%.
Shortly after the report was published, the “Rapid Response 47” account on X posted a graphic from the Times showing the steep drop in legal immigration visas during Trump’s second term.
The graphic tracked the change in monthly immigrant visas by region. Visas from Eastern Europe fell 84%, Central Asia dropped 99%, Africa declined 89% and Southeast Asia fell 17%, among other regions.
Only two places saw more visas issued: Mexico, which rose 17%, and Canada, which jumped 142%.
The Rapid Response 47 account added a thumbs-up emoji to its caption above the graphic.
It is not the first time the account has touted the decline. Last month, the same account proudly shared a graphic from the Cato Institute showing that immigration from Muslim-majority nations had dropped 96% since former President Joe Biden left the White House.
According to the Cato Institute, monthly immigrant visa issuances and permanent lawful refugee admissions from those countries fell from 21,096 in December 2024 to just 808 in February 2026.
The think tank’s report found the decline affected nearly every majority-Muslim nationality in the world.
Afghans made up roughly one in four, or 27%, of the total drop among majority-Muslim countries. The number of Afghan legal immigrants and refugees went from 5,563 in December 2024 to just nine in February 2026, a 99.8% decline.
Pakistanis followed, with a drop of 2,963, or 97.9%.
Only three countries, Qatar, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, saw increases during that period, according to Cato. Turkey posted the smallest decline, falling just 8%.
The Times noted Sunday that the sharp cuts to immigrant visas follow a period in which the number “declined only slightly,” dropping about 10% during Trump’s first year back in the White House.
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