A Comprehensive Look into Undocumented Immigrants and the Impact of Trump's Mass Deportation Plan

Early Monday morning President-elect Donald J. Trump confirmed his intentions of declaring a national emergency and using the military to assist in a “mass deportation program” in a reply on his social media platform Truth Social. Trump has been vehement in his disdain for undocumented immigrants and while his fearmongering political rhetoric won the support of voters too simple-minded to do their own research, the entire nation may suffer if his deportation plan is carried out. 

The truth is that undocumented immigrants power the American economy. 41% of farm workers carry no authorization (U.S Department of Agriculture) and work 10-12 hour days in arduous conditions to put food on the table for American families. 20% of maintenance workers are undocumented (Cornell) as is 20% of the construction industry (University of Michigan.) While the number drops to 12% in the food service industry (Center for American Progress), the fact remains that immigrants are willing to work the least desirable jobs for almost unlivable wages.

Additionally, social programs like Medicare and Social Security are funded in large part by taxes paid by undocumented immigrants. A study conducted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that workers lacking legal status paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes in 2022. Immigrants, documented or not, are barred from receiving most social services, meaning they paid nearly $100 billion for benefits they won’t even receive. 

Further, mass deportation efforts have historically had adverse effects on the economy. Economists at Goldman Sachs have estimated that the Trump administration could deport anywhere from 300,000 to 2.1 million people in 2025, based on removal trends from Trump’s first term in office and trends from the Eisenhower administration, which Trump has suggested he would like to emulate in his second term (New York Times). The direct cost of carrying out such an operation is estimated to be $88 billion (American Immigration Council), also known as: 

• Nearly twice the annual budget of the National Institutes of Health

• Nearly four times the budget of NASA

• Nearly three times as much as the federal government spends on child nutrition

• More than the government gives out each year in the Child Tax Credit program.

• Eighteen times more than the entire world spends each year on cancer research.

Beyond the direct financial cost, empirical studies of mass deportations under the Bush and Obama administrations found that employment and wages of U.S.-born workers decreased by 1.3% and 1.6% respectively per one million deportations (University of Chicago). The mass deportation of America’s 11 million undocumented workers would cause GDP to decrease by 4.2 to 6.8 percent. For comparison, GDP shrank 4.3 percent during the catastrophic 2008 recession. 

There are some experts such as Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which measures the fiscal impact of public policies, who feel Trump’s operation will fall far short of its goal, resulting in only a few hundred thousand deportations (New York Times). But others, like Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, believe that is just the first stage of a multifaceted plan. Hundreds of thousands of new arrivals received humanitarian parole through CBP One – an app that schedules appointments to come across the border – or were granted Temporary Protected Status under the Biden administration alone (NPR) and Trump will almost certainly loosen deportation guidelines so that ICE can arrest and deport previously admitted immigrants more freely.

Moreover, it would be callous to overlook the growing number of mixed-status households and the socioeconomic impact of removing undocumented immigrants from such households. According to data compiled by the Center for Migration Studies, 6 million U.S.-born citizens currently share 3 million households with undocumented residents. 96.7% of these residents were 14 years old or younger when they were brought to America and 95% of the U.S.-born citizens living in mixed-status households are simply children living with their undocumented parents.

Apart from the emotional and economic hardship losing the breadwinner would bring on mixed-status households, the removal of undocumented residents would reduce median household income from $41,300 to $22,000, and plunge millions of US families into poverty (US Census Bureau). It would also jeopardize America's housing market, as a majority of the 1.2 million mortgages held by households with undocumented immigrants would be at risk. Additionally, assuming one-third of US-born children living in mixed-status households remain in the country following a mass deportation program, the cost of raising those children through their minority would total $118 billion.

Authors Note: I have always struggled with the idea of privilege. My parents are second-generation immigrants and worked hard to afford a life in an affluent town in Connecticut for me and my sister. Growing up, they stressed the importance of a college education and did everything to ensure we performed up to our potential academically. And although I'm forever grateful, its hard not to feel like I was born with a silver spoon when my familiy hires immigrants (likely undocumented) for everything from room cleaning to leaf blowing and landscaping. That's not to say that don't appreciate the help, because I really do. But what I have found true power in is treating those workers no different than I treat my teachers, my parents, or my friends.

The first time my mom hired Carlos and his team of painters, they stopped work everytime I left the house and greeted me "good afternoon sir." While I realize this was a social nicety, something about it didn't sit right with me. So for the next few weeks, my mom and I had Gatorades and chicken sandwhiches on standby for whenever they would arrive and I refused to go back inside until the entire crew was fed. What was the result? Instead of "sir," the workers began calling me "mi amigo" and their timidness was gradually replaced with jokes told in broken English. The point of this digression is not whether or not the immigrants my family hires are documented, but that even if they aren't, they are human beings doing everything they can to provide for their families, the same as you and me.

Works Cited

Inskeep, Steve, and Christopher Thomas. “Trump Promised the “Largest Deportation” in U.S. History. Here’s How He Might Start.” NPR, 12 Nov. 2024, www.npr.org/2024/11/12/nx-s1-5181962/trump-promises-a-mass-deportation-on-day-1-what-might-that-look-like.

lissajm. “The Perils of Undocumented Construction Workers in the United States - DEITABASE.” DEITABASE - a Community Resource for Merging DEI and CEE Education, 28 May 2024, limos.engin.umich.edu/deitabase/2024/05/28/undocumented-construction-workers-us/.

Robbins, Jeremy. “Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy.” American Immigration Council, 2 Oct. 2024.

Savchuk, Katia. “A New Look at Immigrants’ Outsize Contribution to Innovation in the US | Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR).” Siepr.stanford.edu, 14 Apr. 2023, siepr.stanford.edu/news/new-look-immigrants-outsize-contribution-innovation-us.

Smialek, Jeanna. “How Trump’s Plans for Mass Deportations, Tariffs and Fed Could Affect the Economy.” The New York Times, 18 Nov. 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/us/politics/trump-economy-immigration-inflation-fed.html.

Svajlenka, Nicole. Undocumented Immigrants in the Food Supply Chain. 2021.

U.S. Department of Agriculture. “USDA Economic Research Service - Farm Labor.” Usda.gov, 7 Aug. 2023, www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Warren, Robert, and Donald Kerwin. “Mass Deportations Would Impoverish US Families and Create Immense Social Costs - the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS).” The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), 2017, cmsny.org/publications/mass-deportations-impoverish-us-families-create-immense-costs/.