The Trump administration announced new guidelines to apprehend and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Trump’s new rules on deporting undocumented immigrants will cost Americans trillions of dollars and millions of heartaches.
Trump’s new policies target all undocumented Americans, whether they committed a crime or not. The cost to the budget, American businesses, and heartache are tremendous.
According to Ryan Edwards and Frances Ortega at the Center for American Progress, deporting the seven million undocumented workers in this country would reduce the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2.6 percent. This number compares to the number of job losses during the 2008 recession.
In monetary terms, deporting the seven million would cost the economy 4.7 trillion dollars over a decade. Let that sink in for a moment—the United States economy would lose 470 billion dollars a year. So much for Republican fiscal responsibility.
The American Action Forum also issued its response to Trump’s heartless deportations. It reported that deporting all undocumented
immigrants would reduce our economy two percent in one year. It also reported that GDP would drop six percent in 20 years.
The U.S. economy would face catastrophe by deporting undocumented workers and their families. And the economic loss would also affect states that count on these workers.
Agricultural states such as California, Texas, Missouri, and so many more would lose many of those who work in their fields. Without these workers to pick crops, spoilage will occur.
This spoilage would result in farmers losing money and possibly their livelihoods. City, county, state, and federal funds would dry up from people not paying taxes on purchased goods.
And who would fill these jobs? In Arizona, “less than 10 percent of the jobs vacated by undocumented immigrants were filled by legal immigrants or low-skilled native-born workers.” The American Action Forum estimates that millions of jobs will be empty if undocumented workers leave.
And stores would suffer drastic economic losses, too. If people do not have money to buy goods, then grocery stores, retail stores, online businesses, and so many other stores will close.
Among the casualties would be manufacturing industries, who Trump stated he would help. Without workers to produce the goods and people to buy them, these businesses will close, too.
Additionally, the government will need to hire thousands more ICE officers and border patrol agents. Trump’s memo pledged 15,000 additional border agents as well as the construction of new detention facilities.
But where will these funds come from? Congress cut only so much before it has to impose more taxes on the middle-class or, perhaps, tax its base — the wealthy. We will soon learn whether Republicans will alienate their base by doing this.
My bet is that they will not. Instead, Congress and Trump will raise everyone else’s taxes.
While this will cost the American public trillions of dollars, there is no measure of the heartache of deporting so many people. The separation of children from their parents, long-time residents from their neighbors, and family members from other family members is heart-wrenchingly sad.
Trump and Republicans ran on deporting undocumented immigrants and building a wall to keep them out. It appears that they did not take all the economic and human costs involved when hatching their devious, evil plans.
