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(AP) -- Growth rates in U.S. metro areas dropped the steepest last year in communities along the border with Mexico because of declines in immigrants, while counties along Florida's Gulf Coast lost residents due to a series of hurricanes, according to population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The estimates showed that a majority of metro areas and counties had slower population gains last year, which the agency attributed primarily to a slowdown in international migration. A year earlier, an influx of immigrants had helped urban areas recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The average growth rate for metro areas fell from 1.1% in 2024 to 0.6% in 2025.
The figures, covering one year through July 1, 2025, reflect the initial months of President Donald Trump's second term and the beginning of his administration's immigration crackdown, With an aging America and birth rates in the Unied States declining over the past two decades, immigration has become an important source of growth in many communities.
"With so little natural increase, migration determines whether an area grows or declines, particularly in the big metro cores that have continuous domestic out-migration and are dependent on immigration," said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire.
Immigrant losses
Three metro areas along the southern border stretching from Arizona to Texas had the steepest drops in population growth rates in 2025.
The growth rate in Laredo, Texas, dropped from 3.2% to 0.2%. It went from 3.3% to 1.4% in Yuma, Arizona, and declined from 1.2% into negative territory at -0.7% in El Centro, California. All three experienced growth in 2024 because of an influx of thousands of immigrants.
"That pattern suggests a sharper rise-and-fall effect in border regions, where international migration plays a more central role in year-to-year population change," said Helen You, interim director of the Texas Demographic Center.
As in 2024, the top destinations for immigrants in pure numbers in 2025 were counties that are home to Houston, Miami and Los Angeles. But the drop in immigrant numbers in those counties was stark.
Hurricane migration
Two destructive hurricanes, Helene and Milton, tore through Gulf Coast counties in Florida in fall 2024, causing tens of billions of dollars in damage. The storms also caused residents to leave, according to the population estimates.
Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, lost almost 12,000 residents, the second most in the country, trailing only Los Angeles County, which has been losing population all decade. Pinellas County relies on migration for growth because deaths outpace births more than in any American county.
Taylor County, a tiny rural community ravaged by the hurricanes in Florida's Big Bend area, had the steepest growth rate decline among U.S. counties last year, with a -2.2% drop.
Urban counties such as Pinellas likely will be quicker to rebuild their counts than the more rural ones in Big Bend, said Richard Doty, a research demographer at the University of Florida.
"These communities may recover in time, but they have lost a lot of appeal due to the hurricanes, the cost of insurance, etc.," Doty said.
The hurricane migration was not limited to Florida. In the Blue Ridge Mountains, the county that is home to Asheville, North Carolina, had more than 2,000 residents leaving in the months after the remnants of Helene destroyed homes and cut off power and communications to mountain towns.