By Francisco I. Pedraza, Jason L. Morín and Loren Collingwood
One of President Donald Trump’s major promises during the 2024 presidential campaign was to launch mass deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. without legal authorization.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has said that, since January 2025, it is detaining and planning to deport 600 to 1,100 immigrants a day. That marks an increase from the average 282 immigration arrests that happened each day in September 2024 under the Biden administration.
The current trend would place the Trump administration on track to apprehend 25,000 immigrants in Trump’s first month in office. On an annual basis, this is about 300,000 – far from the “millions and millions” of immigrants Trump promised to deport.
A lack of funding, immigration officers, immigration detention centers and other resources has reportedly impeded the administration’s deportation work.
The Trump administration is seeking US$175 billion from Congress to use for the next four years on immigration enforcement, Axios reported on Feb. 11, 2025.
If Trump does make good on his promise of mass deportations, our research shows that removing millions of immigrants would be costly for everyone in the U.S., including American citizens and businesses.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
Food costs will increase
One important factor is that mass deportations would weaken key industries in the U.S. that rely on immigrant workers, including those living in the U.S. illegally.
Overall, immigrants without legal authorization make up about 5% of the total U.S. workforce.
But that overall percentage doesn’t reflect these immigrants’ concentrated presence within various industries. Approximately half of U.S. farmworkers are living in the country without legal authorization, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Some of these immigrant farmworkers are skilled supervisors who make decisions about planting and harvesting. Others know how to use and maintain tractors, loaders, diggers, rakers, fertilizer sprayers, irrigation systems, and other machines crucial to farm operations.
If those workers were to be suddenly removed from the country, Americans would see an increase in food costs, including what they spend on groceries and at restaurants.
With fewer available workers to pick fruits and vegetables and prepare the food for shipment and distribution, the domestic production of food could decrease, leading to higher costs and more imports.
National estimates of the restaurant and food preparation workforce, meanwhile, indicate that between 10% and 15% of those workers are immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
Past state-level immigration enforcement policies offer an idea of what could happen at the national level if Trump were to carry out widespread deportations.
For example, a 2011 Alabama law called HB-56 directed local police officers to investigate the immigration status of drivers stopped for speeding. It also prohibited landlords from renting properties to immigrants who do not have legal authorization to work or live in the country. That law and its resulting effects prompted some Alabama-based immigrant workers to leave the state following workplace raids.
Their departure wound up costing the state an estimated $2.3 billion to $10.8 billion loss in Alabama’s annual gross domestic product due to the loss of workers and economic output.
Other industries that rely on immigrants
Part of the challenge of mass deportations for industries like construction, nearly a quarter of whose workers are living without legal authorization, is that their workforce is highly skilled and not easily replaced. Immigrant workers are particularly involved in home construction and specialize in such tasks as ceiling and flooring installation as well as roofing and drywall work.
Fewer available workers would mean slower home construction, which in turn would make housing more expensive, further compounding existing problems of housing supply and affordability.
Shocks from deportations would also slow commercial and public infrastructure construction. Six construction workers, for example, died in April 2024 in the sudden collapse of the Baltimore Key Bridge in Maryland. All of them were Latino immigrants living in the U.S. without legal documentation.
Examining the arguments
Trump administration officials and other politicians have argued that deporting large numbers of immigrants would help the country save money, since fewer people will use federal and state funds by attending public schools or receiving temporary shelter.
Trump said in November 2024 that there is “no price tag” for large-scale deportations.
“It’s not a question of price tag,” Trump said. “We have no choice. When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here,” Trump told NBC News.
Trump and his supporters also argue that deporting immigrants would mean more jobs for American workers.
But there is compelling evidence to the contrary.
First, immigrants are filling labor shortages and doing jobs that many Americans don’t want to do, ones that might be unsafe or poorly paid.
Even if Americans were willing to do those jobs, there simply aren’t enough Americans in the workforce to fill existing labor vacuums, let alone an enlarged one following deportations.
Second, for employers, having fewer workers in the country translates into higher wages, which in turn means less capital to adapt and grow. For businesses based on consumer debt – think mortgages, car loans and credit cards – deportations would disrupt the financial sector by removing responsible borrowers who make consistent payments.
Third, immigrants living without legal documentation in the U.S. pay more than $96 billion in federal, state and local taxes per year and consume fewer public benefits than citizens.
Immigrants without legal authorization are not eligible for Social Security benefits and can’t enroll in Medicare or many other safety net programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Rebecca Kiger for The Washington Post via Getty Images
The bottom line
In other words, people who are living and working in the U.S. without legal authorization are helping to pay, through taxes, the costs of caring for Americans as they age and begin to draw on the nation’s retirement and health care programs.
The burden from recent inflation notwithstanding, an economy supported by immigrants living illegally in the U.S. protects Americans.
The U.S. would be unable to dodge the economic shocks and high costs that mass deportations would bring about.
Francisco I. Pedraza is Professor of political science at Arizona State University. Jason L. Morín is Professor of Political Science at California State University, Northridge.
Loren Collingwood is Associate Professor of political science at the University of New Mexico.
Pogo says
@ Francisco I. Pedraza, Jason L. Morín and Loren Collingwood
You’re sure?
Jake from state farm says
This headline is misleading. If a migrant is here legally, they are allowed to stay. However, if they entered the country illegally, they should be deported. Headlines like these are designed to mislead and create division.
It’s unfortunate that many citizens, who are receiving government assistance and are capable of helping with farm harvests, aren’t contributing. I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t receive support, but wouldn’t it be fair if they gave something back in return and not just sitting around? Of course, I recognize that there are individuals who may have valid reasons for not being able to help, but there are certainly some who could. Don’t read more into this then I have written. There are people and instances where this is not possible. If you can not admit that there are people receiving assistance that are capable and not doing anything to get off of assistance then you are part of the problem.
Anonymous says
Where was this article when the deporter in Chief (Obama) deported all the illegal aliens?
Ray W, says
Thank you, Mr. Tristam, for publishing this.
The gullible among us have been buying the lies spread by the professional lying class of one of our two political parties. As I have been commenting for quite some time, we needed every one of the millions of immigrants who came to America after to pandemic in order for President Trump to inherit an economy that is the envy of the world.
About six to eight months ago, I was quoting a Florida Farm Bureau spokesman who told a reporter that Florida farmers had not planted as many acres of crops during the spring of 2024 because they didn’t know if there would be enough pickers available to harvest their crops in the fall. Florida is not an immigrant friendly state. Did these crop phenomena happen all over the country? Did prices for fruits and vegetables rise because Florida farms produced fewer acres of product? The concept of supply and demand suggests this might have happened.
No plant, no harvest. Why can’t the gullible FlaglerLive commenters among us understand this? No farmer alive wants to spend the money to plant and raise a crop and then watch it rot unpicked in the field. Half of America’s pickers are undocumented. What fool believes it a good thing if we have to import food from abroad because we run off the pickers and can’t harvest our own food?
President Trump seeks $175 billion over four years for immigration enforcement after he killed an immigration reform bill crafted in part by a conservative Republican Senator? Trump now says he doesn’t care how much his immigration plan costs the taxpayer? What is wrong with this picture?
Alabama passes laws that prompt immigrants to leave the state and the loss in state GDP is estimated at between $2.3 billion and $10.8 billion?
Per normal, I ate breakfast with a friend this past Sunday. As is becoming commonplace, when I walked into the diner, I looked into the kitchen and saw the store manager working the line yet again. I asked my server. She said a second store manager had had to come in to staff the line because they couldn’t hire enough cooks. Apparently, one of the two managers is dense enough to berate and curse out employees out of habit. The servers don’t like being cursed at. The server later said their best and longest-tenured cook had just walked out after being berated once too often by one of the managers. She said our food would take some time to prepare, even though it really wasn’t all that busy. Breakfast took about an hour and ten minutes to arrive, but since it was two old men talking about everything and nothing, it really didn’t matter.
Does every FlaglerLive reader remember the commenters about three years or four years ago who berated those Americans who, in their opinion, didn’t work hard enough? Some of the more stupid commenters were business owners who didn’t realize that their disrespect for and abuse of their employees was the reason for their problems getting and keeping help. I worked my way through high school, college and law school cooking in restaurants. I know that restaurant workers share stories over drinks after work about who the crappy bosses are and where not to work. No one wants to work for a crappy, disrespectful boss. When I managed kitchens, no one on the line was allowed to curse. The owner backed me up on this. We seldom had to hire new line workers, but whenever a potential employee was interviewed, I told them to tell me now if they were compelled to curse over every slight. I told them if they just had to curse, I would tell the owner not to hire them. Once they promised not to curse, respect for servers was no longer an issue. Servers kept telling me how much better it was to work in a restaurant where people respected them.
ATAF says
If they truly wanted to perform mass deportations, they would be doing so by now. We all know where illegal immigrants tend to gather. He’s simply using this rhetoric to appease his MAGA base, much like he used ‘the wall’ in 2016. The primary objective of this administration seems to be filling their own pockets with public funds.
JimboXYZ says
So what is any different from what was experienced over the last 4 years for inflation for every economic segment of the US economy, when millions flooded into the work force for +/-3% unemployment ? And then it turns out they lied & restated employment numbers by 1 million. When would or has that become a fraud & abuse issue ? Providing immigrants, both relatively legal & illegal with benefits no homeless American would remotely qualify to receive ? Are those getting benefits & working at the same time ? Some employers/employees have never played by the laws at any Federal &/or State level in my lifetime.
Ed P says
Fear mongering, speculations, half truths from both sides of the aisle. Even lies.
My thought is, How did we have such a great economy during the 8 years of the Obama administration without all these “necessary employees” ?
The most recent tidal wave of illegal immigration has overwhelmed and stressed every segment of of our economy. It is probable that the unvetted migration group during the last 4 years may never “contribute “ more than they take. The actual financial cost is just now being revealed. It’s a large deficit. We don’t even know how many people it actually is.
A controlled, legal immigration process is totally different. It is, has, and always will be beneficial to our country for all the right reasons.
The last 4 years was unhealthy for our country. “Houston, we have a problem”
Charles says
Higher prices for those that can’t afford it but does the Republican party care NO. They are all sitting in Washington with high paying salaries and benefits which is all that matters to them.
The immigration entry into the US has been messed up for years and you would think by now they would have a human plan to resolve it but they don’t.
Steve Miller just cares about getting anyone not from the US out of the country. He doesn’t care if children are separated from their parents.
Now we have an immigrant from Africa running our country since Trump decided to sell it to him and Trump didn’t want to be in office anyway he just ran to stay out of jail.
Our country is in a mess being run by incompetent people making wrong decisions that are now affecting the safety of our country.
Ed P says
Charles,
How is calling out a citizen of the United States, Elon Musk, as an African immigrant acceptable?
Let’s be real honest, he is a citizen of South Africa, Canada, and the United States.
Feel better now?
Al says
Look at the math first. If there are 10 million less bodies here that means more available housing, more available food at the stores and less of my tax money going to these illegals. This would lessen the pressure on pricing and things will become affordable. The low paying jobs will have to come up in pay and benefits. It’s not that Americans won’t do them it’s that they won’t at that pay rate. If you truly feel that pay is too low then paying a bit more isn’t going to hurt. There are also green cards available for farm help they just have to apply properly.
Ray W, says
The Washington Post just posted an article detailing the types and known amounts of Ukrainian mineral reserves.
“Ukraine’s rare metal and critical material deposits include some of the world’s largest reserves of titanium and fields of untapped lithium. Collectively, they are estimated to be worth trillions of dollars, although their precise value and distribution across the country are not publicly known.”
According to the European Commission, more than 20 critical raw materials, “including kaolin, gallium, manganese, and germanium” are present in the Ukraine.
Analysts estimate that Russia has already seized land that contains more than $12 trillion worth of energy assets (yes, the Ukraine has significant oil and gas reserves, plus large fields of coal deposits), metals and minerals. One of the Ukraine’s “key” lithium reserves is located about 10 miles from the current position of Russian forces.
Estimates put the Ukraine’s gold reserves at 3,000 metric tons, somewhat equal to that of the U.S.
Lithium reserves are estimated at 500,000 metric tons.
Uranium reserves are estimated at over 107,000 metric tons, the most in any European state.
Graphite reserves are estimated at 500 million metric tons.
Titanium reserves are estimated at 8.4 million metric tons, one of the largest reserves in the world.
Beryllium (a rare metal) proven reserves are estimated at 5,512 metric tons.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Russian President Putin lies when he claims that NATO threatens Russia’s sovereignty.
The truth is that Putin desires Ukrainian wealth, in its people, who are well-educated and productive, in its minerals and metals, in its industrial capacity, in its agricultural capacity, in its valuable Black Sea ports, and on and on. Putin is simply a common thief writ large.
President Trump just claimed that Ukrainian President Zelensky is an unelected dictator, despite Zelensky having been elected just before Russia invaded. He also recently claimed that Zelensky has a 4% approval rating with his people, which is another lie. He claimed yesterday that the Ukraine started the war. Another lie. The gullible among us will torture their already weak reasoning skills and claim that Trump’s lies are the truth. There exists a professional lying class at the top of one of our two political parties. We are witnessing the unfolding of the Great Russian Appeasement of 2025.
There will become a point in time when the gullible fools among us realize that Trump’s MO is to lie. His goal is for the gullible among us to accept his lies and spread them.
Laurel says
Ed P.: There are legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, are there not? Elon Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002. He did immigrate from South Africa, where he was born. We still, to this day, refer to our close ancestors as immigrants. No insult intended.
Pogo says
@Musk is a world unto itself
…and an off the chain megalomaniac and sociopath.
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=megalomaniac
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=sociopath
Wait til this boot drops — on your neck.
https://www.google.com/search?q=us+citizens+now+eligible+for+extradition+outsourcing+to+foreign+prisons
Kim says
Jake from State Farm (not) describes a fantasy of a return to slavery in the South. It’s clear as day, without using the factual words but lots of gaslighting on the edge, the paper-thin edge, of an avalanche of bits fellow Americans might accept incrementally until a Gilead with multiracial slave labor returns and white men rule supreme. He and Ed P, interestingly enough, suddenly seem to be all over every commentary these days. My question, Jake: How ’bout YOU go out and pick those citrus trees and plow fields in 100temps? We all have to pull do our part when the migrant labor gets deported and every produce is rotting in fields and milk cows slaughtered for inability to milk them all.
Nancy N. says
Jake, the idea that there are tons of people sitting around just living off of government benefits is a complete myth. The government’s own data shows that over 80% of people who are receiving need-based benefits work at least one job, some more than one. SNAP’s biggest beneficiaries are employers like Walmart, because it allows them access to labor they don’t have to pay a living wage for while the government is subsidizing their wages through programs like SNAP and Medicaid. The rest of the people…overwhelming are either elderly, disabled, or caring for small children (have you seen the cost of child care lately?). You’ve been sold this story that these “lazy” people are stealing your money so you’ll direct your anger at them and won’t notice who is really stealing it (hint, it’s the people telling you the lies about benefit program recipients).
Nancy N. says
Ed, calling Elon an African immigrant is absolutely relevant when he’s functioning as defacto president, a position that he was 1) not elected to, and 2) not eligible for in the first place due to the fact that he is in fact an immigrant.
Kim says
Incidentally, where do y’all get this absurd idea that migrants are sucking off the public dole? That’s just not part of factual reality. The Texas asylum seekers who Govs Abbott and DeSantis bused to yankee cities as a propaganda stunt are costing the cities that don’t have the agriculture jobs people expected. But that’s city tax money, not yours. USCIS forbids work for people with asylum claims to remain legally, yet they work off-books because no one is housing them free, but you think that shadow economy lets y’all get away with the gaslight that they’re “illegal.” Documented or not, nearly every migrant works, pays property taxes via rent, sales taxes, FICA taxes they’ll never get benefit of via their employers defrauding ICE by reporting fake SS# (and they do, including the dude at Mar-a-Lago, cannot keep letting the ILLEGAL EMPLOYERS skate on their crimes). USCIS fees migrants pay to get legal status are exorbitant. So, if you want to keep saying migrants are “costing” us, you need to come up with some verified proof of that broad brush before I believe a word of it. Until then, it’s just the usual gasbag gaslight. Vote straight d until the GOP gets its mind and spine back.
Atwp says
Send the illegal immigrants away. I don’t like Trump, but I do agree with him about the illegal immigrants being deported.
Ray W, says
About a week or so ago, Business Insider published an article, not an opinion piece, headlined: “How US immigrants working illegally help fund programs they can’t access, like Social Security and Medicare”
Here are some bullet points:
– Of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, some eight million are in the workforce. Many of those eight million workers obtain “individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs) not to obtain federal benefits now, but to help them establish a tax payment history and prove strong moral character should they in the future seek a path to citizenship or face a deportation hearing. Others who obtain ITINs include student visa holders, spouses and children of those with employment visas, or survivors of domestic violence. The IRS cannot share data associated with ITINs with other government agencies.
– ITINs do not provide work authorization, they do not provide legal immigrant status, and they do not allow undocumented immigrants access to Social Security or Medicare benefits. Should an undocumented immigrant fail to obtain an ITIN, he or she faces a higher risk of deportation, per UCLA sociology professor Cecilia Menjivar, who specializes in immigration policy.
– Professor Menjivar stated that immigrants, regardless of status, contribute more to taxes than they receive in benefits, adding that removing immigrant workers would reverberate across the economy.
– The Social Security Administration, when asked to estimate the revenue loss of President Trump’s deportation plan, said that if successful, the SSA would lose $20 billion per year in payments.
– Revenue paid by taxpayers who have ITINs, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that immigrants here illegally paid $96.7 billion in all types of taxes in 2022. Over half went to the federal government; the rest to states and localities. Since undocumented immigrants do not qualify for SNAP, SSI, unemployment insurance, housing assistance, or tax credits, any of the taxes they pay that are directed to those programs do not benefit them.
– ITIN tax payments can be used to retroactively count toward a person’s Social Security benefits amount, should the immigrants eventually become a citizen, per the American Immigration Council. ITINs can be used to open bank accounts or obtain driver’s licenses.
– A 1996 immigration statute prohibits undocumented immigrants from accessing certain retirement or welfare benefits for five years after achieving citizenship.
– According to the reporter, since America’s birth rate is in decline and since the number of retirees claiming Social Security benefits is on the rise, undocumented immigrants now comprise a significant percentage of workforce growth, which fills state and federal coffers.
Make of this what you will.