economic impact if Donald Trump expels undocumented migrants

In this context, he has been talking about mass deportations, new detention centers to block new arrivals, the expansion of a wall on the southern border with Mexico, among other measures.​

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His theory, beyond the legal aspect, is that immigrants “steal” jobs from Americans and are, in his words, a drag on the economy. However, numerous studies, experts in the sector and reports from official entities indicate the opposite. According to them, in fact, Trump’s plans would have a devastating effect on the country’s economy.

Instead of more jobs, they claim, there would be fewer opportunities, inflation would skyrocket again and the country would stop growing at the current rate with very severe effects on sectors such as construction, agriculture and food services.​

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According to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, for example, Much of the recovery of the labor market established after the covid-19 pandemic has been marked by the entry of immigrants.

According to this study, the foreign-born workforce has grown so rapidly in recent years that it has made it possible to close the gap that was created during the pandemic years in record time.

For its part, the Economic Policy Institute stated in another report that at least 50 percent of the growth in the labor market in the United States between January 2023 and January 2024 came from foreign workers.

“The growth experienced in recent years will have been impossible with only a native workforce. In that sense, the arrival of immigrants has been fundamental,” says Pia Orrenius, vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

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Recent statistics from the Congressional Budget Office conclude that, at the current rate, The American workforce will grow by more than five million between now and 2033 thanks to immigration. Which translates into about seven trillion additional dollars compared to growth without new immigrants.

“The economy is not a zero-sum game. That is, when one person gets a job it does not mean that another loses it,” Chloe East, an economist at the University of Colorado, told the Washington Post in a recent article on this topic. .

Although the calculations are complex, on paper, they are rather simple.

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If employers stopped employing an immigrant workforce – who can be paid less – they would have to raising wages to attract the native workforce, which would increase production costs and, this in turn, would eventually cause the cost of services to rise – inflation – and the closure of many businesses that could not survive..

Especially in sectors such as construction, agriculture, and the restaurant and food industry, which are generally dominated by immigrants and are of no interest to the American workforce.

Economist East, along with another group of colleagues, recently published a study in which they argued that For every 100,000 foreign workers leaving the labor market, 9,000 American jobs would be lost.

And, given that there are assumed to be about 12 million undocumented people living in the US, their departure from the workforce – if Trump kept his promise to expel them – would be equivalent to the net loss of one million jobs for Americans.

In addition to his immigration plans, Trump has also promised a tariff of at least 10 percent on any imported goods, which would impact more than $3 trillion in annual trade.
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According to experts, an escalation in trade hostilities with other countries combined with a ‘shock’ to the labor market due to the closure of immigration would raise prices even further and translate into more inflation.

Of course, the former Republican president and his advisors argue that the laws must be followed and the US cannot continue to look the other way while thousands illegally cross the border to take advantage of asylum laws.

The problem, one that has been a matter of debate in the United States for decades, is that the cure may turn out to be worse than the disease.