Mass Deportation: a Bad Idea for the US Economy
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
There were many lies about immigrants spread during the 2024 presidential campaign. It is necessary to replace the misinformation with facts to think clearly about the economic impact of immigration and deportation on the US economy – especially since Donald Trump says he intends to move forward on mass deportation.
For all of the 21st century, there have been millions of unauthorized immigrants in the United States. The peak year on record was 2007, when there were 12.2 million unauthorized immigrants living here. In 2022, there were 11 million – 1.2 million fewer or about 10 percent less than in 2007. The provisional estimate for 2023 is 11.7 million, still below the 2007 peak.
In some cases, a sudden, rapid increase in immigrants – authorized and unauthorized – could put social and economic stress on the specific communities receiving the influx. There might be difficulties finding housing and finding space in schools, and social service organizations might find their capacity strained. At the same time, many anecdotal reports detail the economic benefits of increased immigration in particular communities.
At the US-Mexico border, migrant encounters – which refers to apprehensions and expulsions – dramatically increased from 2020 to 2023, but there was a sharp reversal in 2024. The foreign-born population, authorized and unauthorized, in the United States increased 1.6 million from 2022 to 2023. While this was the largest increase in 20 years, it was not large enough to have an impact on the day-to-day lives of most of the over 300 million people in the country.
In a population of nearly 12 million unauthorized immigrants, it would not be surprising to find that there are some number of them who commit serious crimes. The research clearly shows, however, that the rate of criminal offending among immigrants is lower than for the native-born. A study of data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, for example, found that “undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born US citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.” Further, research suggests that immigrant populations actually help to reduce crime ratesin communities.
In sum, the situation in the United States in relation to immigrants today is not much different than it was a decade ago. There is no new crisis.
Unauthorized Immigrants and the US Economy
How would Trump’s planned mass deportation impact the US economy? Recent history gives us some indications. From 2008 to 2014, about 400,000 people were deported from the United States. This mass deportation allowed scholars to study its economic effects. A recent analysis concluded that for each half million immigrants deported, the US-born population would actually lose 44,000 jobs. The work that the immigrants did was necessary to the jobs of US-born workers, so the loss of the immigrants caused the loss of jobs for the native-born. Also, the spending of immigrants (on food, clothing, etc.) paid the wages of US-born workers. Without that spending, jobs for US-born workers were lost. The deportation of millions of unauthorized immigrant workers will mean the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs for the US-born.
While the overall number of unauthorized immigrants is small in comparison to the entire US population, the fact that they are concentrated in particular sectors of the economy would make their rapid removal disruptive. Unauthorized immigrants are overrepresented as maids, housecleaners, cooks, grounds maintenance workers, janitors, agricultural workers, and construction workers. A large and rapid deportation program would increase the costs of the products and services connected to these industries. In Texas, the construction industry is expressing alarm about how Trump’s plans will devastate their ability to build homes and other infrastructure.
Because unauthorized immigrants are also a significant part of our caregiving economy, the deportation from 2008 to 2014 disrupted this sector. Economists have found that the loss of childcare workers led to a reduction in the number of college-educated mothers with young children in the paid labor force.
Legal Immigrants and the US Economy
Although the Trump campaign has spoken loudly about curtailing unauthorized immigration, there is reason to believe that the new administration will reduce authorized immigration to an equal or even greater degree than unauthorized immigration. As the libertarian Cato Institute has pointed out, the first Trump administration significantly reduced legal immigration but largely failed to reduce unauthorized immigration.
People may have a stereotype of immigrant workers as low-wage workers, but immigrant workers can be found throughout the economy. For example, many immigrants work as nurses, computer programmers, educators, and architects. There is also a higher rate of entrepreneurship among immigrants than among the US-born. Almost half of the 500 largest companies in the United States were founded by immigrants or their children. Losing these workers and entrepreneurs will have a negative effect on the U.S. economy.
The Immigration System is Broken – Politics Prevent Potential Solutions
Millions of people are waiting years to enter the United States legally. This gummed-up system is one of the factors causing people to pursue unauthorized immigration. There is bipartisan acknowledgement that the US immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed, but political gamesmanship continues to stymie reform. A 2007 bipartisan effort was blocked in the Senate. A 2013 bipartisan effort was blocked by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner. In 2024, another bipartisan effort was killed by Donald Trump, who sought to campaign on the issue.
Donald Trump has assured his voters that he intends to carry out the xenophobic anti-immigrant policies he espoused as a candidate. He has not said that he will pursue the comprehensive immigration reform needed to fix the broken system and to strengthen the US economy.
This first appeared on CERP.
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