Trump-Era Border Crackdown Thins New York’s Ranks—Tourists and Arrivals Dwindle Quietly

Stricter federal border measures are quietly dampening two crucial flows—tourists and immigrants—upon which New York’s economic and cultural vibrancy rests.

A city that once thronged with the languages of the world now finds its avenues oddly muted. Last year, international arrivals to New York City’s airports fell by 11% compared to 2019, even as other global cities started to regain their pre-pandemic footing. While some blame inflation and post-pandemic caution, industry data and a raft of expert opinion point to one less visible culprit: the toughened US border and visa policies instituted under the previous administration and, in too many particulars, continued by the present one.

These policies, designed to show America as stalwart on security and selective on entry, have had unforeseen local consequences. New York, long the main beneficiary of America’s openness, is feeling the squeeze as arrivals of both tourists and immigrants lag. According to the City Tourism Board, the number of foreign visitors in 2023—about 9.7m—remained notably below the 13.5m peak of 2019. Simultaneously, newly arriving legal immigrants (those on work visas, student permits, or with green cards) are down by a fifth since 2016.

Why does this matter? Both groups have traditionally buoyed the city’s dynamism and filled state coffers. International visitors are spendthrift, contributing an estimated $4.6bn in direct spending and supporting more than 40,000 jobs in hospitality each year, according to NYC & Company, the city’s tourism agency. Immigrants, meanwhile, not only replenish the workforce but provide demographic ballast, plugging gaps left by an aging native-born population and boosting the city’s birth rates—a matter of no small consequence in a metropolis where the median age edges ever upwards.

The effects radiate beyond hotels and Broadway. Immigrant-run businesses account for about 48% of all New York’s small establishments—a bevy of restaurants, bodegas, and start-ups that have animated forgotten retail strips and catalysed new waves of investment from the Bronx to Brooklyn. Moreover, the city’s public universities, once thronged with students from India, China, and Latin America, now report notable declines in international enrolment, threatening both tuition revenue and the research output that underpins much of New York’s knowledge economy.

This chill, though not unique to Gotham, is especially acute here. For a city so iconic that 38% of its residents were born outside the United States, baroque federal entry hurdles cannot help but feel self-sabotaging. Under former President Donald Trump, wait times for most categories of US visas ballooned from mere weeks to several months or more at American consulates abroad, a situation that has improved only marginally since 2021. Layers of new security vetting and capricious denials—not always reversed in the Biden era—have prompted potential visitors and migrants to look elsewhere.

The data bear out the malaise. According to the US Department of State, the number of B1/B2 (visitor) visas issued to people from major source countries such as China and Brazil is still barely half pre-pandemic levels. A similar pattern afflicts skilled-worker and student visas. Small wonder, then, that New York’s hoteliers and universities sound fretful.

A city that needs newcomers, not just nostalgia

The malaise has broader second-order implications. New York’s tax base, already thinned by pandemic-era outmigration to Florida and other sunbelt destinations, could weaken further. The tourism shortfall deprives Midtown and Lower Manhattan of much-needed retail foot traffic, while fewer new immigrants mean less rejuvenation in outlying neighbourhoods and a stingier pool of talent for Silicon Alley and the city’s burgeoning biotech sector.

There are political ramifications as well. Politicians keen to be seen as defenders of “law and order” cite disorder at the southern border to justify clampdowns; meanwhile, policymakers who might agitate for more open and efficient entry rules for workers and tourists have little sway in Washington. Local officials, such as Mayor Eric Adams, are left to plead for more resources—sometimes while bearing the brunt of new migrant surges from the southern border, which are quite distinct from drops in legal migration and tourism.

Nationally, the squeeze is a cautionary tale. While America does not suffer alone—London, Paris, and Toronto have all seen post-pandemic shifts in both tourist and immigrant inflows—the gravity is most pronounced in American gateway cities, New York above all. Few other places so explicitly bet their economic model on the steady churn of newcomers and short-stay guests.

The comparison also exposes the parochial folly of present policies. Canada and Australia, for all their caution, have streamlined entry rules for in-demand skills and students. Even after Brexit, London touts itself as eager for global capital and clever minds, adjusting visa categories to lure them. American reluctance reads more as insularity than prudence.

What is to be done? Expedited processing and more predictable visa rules would help. Local authorities can lobby for—and the federal government should deliver—resources to slash bureaucratic queues. Failing that, New York risks descending into a genteel stasis: richly historic, but wan.

To excuse these trends as the “new normal” would be defeatist. In a city that minted its fortune and its myth by welcoming outsiders—be they Ellis Island arrivals or day-trippers with selfie sticks—policies that dam the flows risk more than lost revenue. They imperil the essential churn that has long turned New York’s restlessness from liability to virtue. Not for the first time, Gotham finds itself waiting for Washington to catch up.

Unless the federal government and local leaders find new ways to welcome both the tourists who spend and the immigrants who build, New York’s world-class status may be quietly eroded. The world, like the city, rarely stands still. Nor should its gates. ■