Do Americans Realize The Huge Cost Of Massive Deportations?

Part of an article by Michael A. Cohen at MSNBC:

It’s a question that Americans might be asking pretty soon themselves. Is the price of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants worth the cost? . . .

What was omitted from Trump’s anti-immigrant diatribes were the significant economic costs of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants.

According to one estimate from the pro-immigration advocacy group American Immigration Council, arresting, detaining and deporting the 13.3 million people who are either in the United States illegally — or are in the country temporarily without legal status — could cost $315 billion. . . .

Even deporting 1 million people yearly could cost nearly $90 billion. Apprehending immigrants, detaining them, court procedures and transporting them out of the country makes mass deportation a complicated and costly endeavor. Indeed, the estimated cost of deporting a single undocumented immigrant is estimated to run as high as $13,000. . . .

To achieve his anti-immigration goals, Trump will likely need Congress to authorize billions of dollars in new spending and hire tens of thousands of new government employees. 

Let’s suppose, for a moment, that Trump is actually successful at getting the mass deportation project off the ground. In Trump’s words, there can be “no price tag” on such an effort. In reality, there is a price — and it will quickly be felt by American consumers. 

Today, undocumented immigrants represent 5% of the U.S. workforce, and because two-thirds of them are between the ages of 25 and 54 (compared to less than 40% of the U.S.-born population), they are overrepresented in the workforce.

Many undocumented immigrants take on dangerous, menial and low-paying jobs. They are maids and housekeepers, construction laborers and agricultural workers. Indeed, a whopping 45 percent of agricultural workers are undocumented along with 15 percent of construction workers. 

If millions of undocumented immigrants are forced to leave the country, these industries will bear the brunt — as will consumers. 

Farms, construction companies and restaurants may find themselves short-staffed and unable to bring on new workers at a time of low unemployment.

the labor disruptions will almost certainly lead to higher prices on everything from food to housing. And working class Americans — many of whom voted for Trump — will get hit the hardest.

There are other indirect costs that many Americans who voted for mass deportation probably didn’t consider. For example, many undocumented immigrants work in child care. If they are forced to leave the country, the number of women in the labor force could decrease. 

Then there are the tax implications. In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid close to $50 billion in federal taxes and nearly $30 billion in state taxes. They also contributed more than $28 billion to Social Security and Medicare (even though they don’t benefit from those programs).  

Migrants are also consumers. Removing them from the country means decreased spending, further undermining the economy.

By nearly any appreciable measure, immigration to the United States is a net economic positive, contributing to higher growth, greater productivity and even a reduced budget deficit. 

Conversely, mass deportations will almost certainly lead to slower economic growth, increased unemployment and, ironically, higher inflation. 

Most Americans Want A Way For Undocumented Immigrants To Stay In U.S.

 

The charts above are from a survey done by the Pew Research Center between August 5th and 11th of a nationwide sample of 9,201 adults, with a 1.3 point margin of error.

Most Undocumented Immigrants Are Not "Illegals" Or "Criminals"

Donald Trump wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, and he has appointed people willing to do that (Miller, Homan, Noem).  That massive deportation will have serious consequences for our economy, inflation, businesses (who need those workers), and tax revenue (since these immigrants pay billions of dollars in taxes).

Some on the right have said Trump will just be deporting criminals. They are both wrong and right. They are wrong because Trump wants to deport millions who have committed no crime. They are right because Trump and his cohorts consider all undocumented immigrants to be "illegal" and therefore "criminals".

The idea that undocumented immigrants are criminals is a popular idea in this country, but it is wrong! Most undocumented immigrants are neither illegal nor criminal, because they have violated no federal criminal law.

Dharlawllp.com explains:

Trump's Massive Deportation Plan Would Be Disastrous For Our Economy

Donald Trump has been demonizing immigrants - trying to scare U.S. voters into voting for him. And he says he will save the country from those scary immigrants, especially the undocumented ones, with a massive deportation plan. He wants to deport all of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants.

But there is something about that plan that he's not telling voters - its cost to the U.S. economy. The cost would be huge - large enough to wreck the economy.

Just to deport them would require many more immigration officials, detention facilities, and transportation costs. It has been estimated that it would cost at least $88 billion to deport a million immigrants in a year - and he wants to deport ten times that amount. It could amount to nearly a trillion dollars!

And that's not the only cost to the economy. Trump has claimed that these immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans. That's not true. Many industries (like meatpackers and fruit/vegetable growers) depend on these immigrants to survive, because U.S. citizens don't want those low-paying, dirty, and sometimes dangerous jobs.

If immigrant-dependent industries lose those workers, it is very unlikely that would be unable to replace them. That would results in shortages, and those shortages would create muck higher prices. Inflation would go through the roof!

And then we come to taxes. The Nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that those immigrants pay about $96.7 billion in taxes each year. Someone would have to make up for this tax loss. It won't be the rich, because Trump wants to give them more huge tax cuts. It will be middle and working class families.

The U.S. needs these immigrant workers. They have helped this nation to have a better economy than any other nation. And that economy would be devastated by Trump crazy and massively expensive plan.

Republicans Are LYING About Undocumented Immigration

 Julio Ricardo Varela exposes the Republican lies about undocumented immigration at MSNBC.com:

Republicans (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Democrats) have given Americans the impression that we’ve been experiencing an “invasion” at our borders. But a new Pew Research Center reportreleased Thursday not only shatters that myth but also reveals that the opposite is true. According to the report, the country’s unauthorized immigrant population peaked at 12.2 million in 2007, that is, when George W. Bush was president, and that population has been steadily decreasing since then. The Pew report found that the unauthorized immigrant population in the United States stood at 10.5 million in 2021, a 14% decrease from what it was in 2007.

If those numbers shock you, then there’s a reason for it. Not a week goes by without somebody in the Republican Party promising mass deportations of unauthorized migrants. They can’t talk about the U.S. border with Mexico without falsely describing it as “open.”

Once proudly described as a nation of immigrants, the United States has become a nation of immigration enforcers thanks to Republicans making immigration a wedge issue that too many Democrats are afraid to challenge.

Republicans say that they don’t mind immigrants entering the country legally; they want to decrease the number coming in illegally. Well, that’s exactly what’s been happening.

Pew noted that at the same time the United States’ population of unauthorized immigrants dropped 14%, there was a 29% increase in what it calls the lawful immigrant population, and the number of naturalized U.S. citizens grew 49%. Of the 47 million foreign-born individuals living in the United States in 2021, the Pew report found, 23.1 million, slightly less than half, were naturalized citizens. . . .

Despite the data showing a steady decrease in the number of unauthorized migrants living in the U.S., Republicans continue to hysterically cast unauthorized migrants as a national security issueand argue that their presence changes the very substance of who and what America is.

But as the numbers from Pew show, to the extent that the demographics in this country are changing because of people coming to the U.S., it’s being driven by people coming here through official channels, not those illegally crossing our southern border. . . .

Behind Mexico and El Salvador, the report says, the country of origin with the next largest unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. is India.

Changing demographics are not a reason to panic, but with former President Donald Trump as their leader, Republicans have chosen panic, and they have plenty of voters who support them in their overreaction. . . .

The roughly 10.5 million undocumented people in the United States are not faceless, and there is enough political support out there to make sure they are seen as the human beings they are. Republicans might be excoriating them, which is dangerous and terrifying, especially for immigrant communities, but those same immigrants help form the fabric of American society. Distorting statistical reality for GOP political expediency is now the standard. But Thursday’s Pew report gives Democrats the opportunity to radically change the conversation.

We Should Tell The Truth About Immigrants At Our Border

Republicans are claiming that we have hordes of illegals and criminals at our Southern border who want to bring in drugs and take jobs away from American citizens. That is mostly a lie!

We do have a problem at the border. There are desperate people trying to get into this country. Most are not criminals, and are trying to obey U.S. immigration law (which means they are not illegal either).

The problem has two causes. The first is the sad situation in their own countries, where they have few, if any, prospects to support their families in a decent manner. The second is out badly broken immigration system. We cannot control the first reason, but we could control the second -- if our politicians would work together instead of trying use the situation to win votes from people who don't understand the situation.

Immigrants who cross the border and evade capture, have broken U.S. immigration law -- so technically, they could be called "illegal". But that is not the situation currently at the border. The people there are trying to cross the border, true themselves in, and ask for asylum. That is perfectly legal under U.S. immigration law. Calling them "illegal" is wrong.

Making the situation even sadder is that U.S. businesses are desperate for workers, and cannot fill their openings with citizens -- especially the dirty, dangerous, and low-paying jobs. These jobs would happily be filled by the desperate people trying to legally enter our country. 

The problem could be fixed by passing a reasonable immigration law, but our politicians (especially Republicans) would rather demonize the immigrants to get votes than do that.

It's easy to claim these people are criminals who pose a danger to Americans, but most aren't. They want to be good, law-abiding Americans. And history has shown that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than citizens.

It's also easy to claim these people are bringing in drugs. That's also mostly a lie. The ones allowed in for an amnesty claim are searched. The ones who try to sneak in are very likely to be caught. The cartels know this is a very bad way to try to sneak in drugs. They have much better ways -- bringing the drugs in by trucks, boats, and airplanes (usually hidden in other goods being imported). 

It's time to stop demonizing and lying about the desperate immigrants at our Southern border. It's also time to fix our broken immigration system. But I doubt our Republicans in Congress will make any attempt to do either. 

Republican Care About Immigrant Crime Is Only Skin Deep

It turns out that the attacker of Mr. Pelosi was an undocumented immigrant, but we're hearing nothing about that from Republicans. Could it be that they only care about immigrant crime when the perp is not white?

Here's Nayyera Haq's take on this at MSNBC.com:

After years of anti-immigrant, “Build the Wall” rhetoric, we have seen one of the highest-profile examples of someone who was in the United States illegally committing an act of shocking violence. We learned this week that the man who took a hammer to the head of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband was undocumented, here on an expired temporary visitor visa, and radicalized online. And the attacker is part of one of the largest populations in the United States illegally: Canadians. 

The Republican Party has used anti-immigrant rhetoric against Latinos and Hispanics for years, making sure it remains a potent topic for voters in the midterm elections. Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters has made so-called illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign but has been silent on the attack on Paul Pelosi. New Hampshire Senate candidate Don Bolduc, who wants to continue Title 42 public health restrictions at the southern border despite President Joe Biden declaring the pandemic over, did issue prayers to the Pelosi family saying “violence is never the answer.” But neither of them, nor any other political leader, is seizing on this crime committed by a supposed “illegal immigrant” to start deporting Canadians.

This is not a Blame Canada shtick. This is the reality: In the past 10 years, visa overstays in the United States outnumbered illegal border crossings by a 2:1 ratio. It’s a trend that’s been growing since 2004, with more than 600,000 people on average living illegally in the United States each year after their visas expired, according to the Department of Homeland Security. After former President Donald Trump’s first year in office, DHS released a report showing that the largest group of people who overstay their official welcome in the United States come from across the northern border. . . .

The difference in perception Americans have between Canadians and Mexicans has significant policy and political implications. American cultural demonization of Canadians is limited to comedians cracking jokes about Justin Bieber and saying “eh?” repeatedly. The trope for Canadians is that they’re too nice while our neighbors to the south have been the target of rape and drug cartel jokes for years. Trump launched his campaign on the back of these stereotypes, saying,“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. ... They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

When Trump called for the creation of a deportation forceand promised to expel 2 million to 3 million undocumented people, there was little surprise that law enforcement targeted people from Central and South America. The disparity in enforcement was still dramatic: In 2017, DHS reported 350 Canadians were deported compared with nearly 130,000 Mexican nationals. . . .

Despite the use of law-and-order rhetoric when it comes to immigration, the political right is specific about which undocumented people get labeled as criminals. Overstaying a visa is currently punishable with up to four years of jail time and a 10 year ban from the United States. But even after this week’s revelations that an egregious act of political violence was committed by someone conservatives would normally term an “illegal immigrant,” there will be no new constituency for deporting Canadians or political railing against Canadians as a criminal monolith.

The constituency that votes based on curbing illegal immigration is not really worried about making sure people don’t take advantage of American laws and generosity. If they were, the policy solutions would be entirely different. We’d see calls for Canadians to enter with visas and for greater data sharing with Canadian authorities for cross-border prosecutions. Both of which are part of the many immigration-related policies DHS has in place with Mexico and countries south of the border. 

Voters that Republicans are courting with their immigration rhetoric are really worried about American identity looking and feeling a certain way. For these voters, their identity cannot be shared with brown day laborers or families willing to risk death to come to the United States. This is the real promise of Trumpism and why immigration holds such a key place in its ideology. That its adherents would mock Pelosi as the latest liberal avatar to be torn down, rather than a near martyr in their crusade, shows that concern about immigrant crime is only skin deep.

A "Conversation" With De Santis About Immigrant Trafficking

A few days ago, Gov. De Santis sent aides to Texas to round up some undocumented immigrants and then flew them to Massachusetts as a political stunt. Using De Santis" own words, Robert Reich has constructed this conversation with De Santis about his immigrant trafficking.

I’m against trafficking of migrants. 

But luring unsuspecting people onto planes with lies about jobs, housing, and education awaiting them, and then depositing them onto an island off the coast of Massachusetts that’s totally unprepared to receive them, is a form of human trafficking.

The people you’re talking about aren’t American citizens. They have no rights. 

Even if they’re not Americans, U.S. law prohibits kidnapping people and moving them across state lines.

I didn’t kidnap them. They’re here illegally! 

You don’t know that. Under our laws, these people are entitled to a hearing on whether they’re here legally — just like all the Cuban asylum seekers who for years have arrived in South Florida fleeing communism. 

What I’m doing is appropriate and legal! I’m paying for part of it with funds from last year’s American Rescue Plan. 

That money was for the COVID-19 health crisis. It isn’t a slush fund for whatever political stunt you dream up.

I’m also using every penny of the $12 million Florida budgeted to relocate migrants. I have a responsibility to the people of Florida to send migrants out of the state! 

If you’re responsible for Floridians, why are you picking up people in Texas and transporting them to Massachusetts?

Many of the people who cross the southern border into Texas end up in Florida. 

But the law gives federal officials the responsibility for handling immigration, not you.

You don’t know the Constitution. Article 10 gives powers not delegated to the federal government to the States.

No Governor, you don’t know the Constitution. Article 1 gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states. Neither you nor the state of Florida has the authority to off-load people you don’t want onto other states. 

I’m not the only governor doing this! 

I know. On Thursday Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent two surprise buses of migrants to Washington, D.C., where they were dropped off near the residence of Vice President Harris carrying all they have in clear plastic trash bags.

And we red-state governors are going to do a lot more! 

So Republican governors can’t be bothered with pesky things like laws or the Constitution?

The U.S. immigration and asylum systems are totally broken! 

Then why don’t you support fixing them instead of using immigrants as political fodder? Ask Republicans in Congress to stop blocking federal legislation creating paths to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants and to expedite asylum seekers and other legal immigrants.

You don’t understand politics. You have to play hardball. 

You don’t understand morality or decency. You’re treating immigrants as if they’re political pawns rather than people. They’re no less people than was your maternal great-great-grandfather Salvatore Storti, who immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1904, or your great-great-grandmother Luigia Colucci, who joined Salvatore in the United States in 1917.

Keep them out of this. 

And you’re treating the citizens of blue states as political hostages rather than fellow Americans. But they are no less American than the millions of retirees from blue states who have migrated to Florida, and their children and grandchildren who still live in blue states. We’re all in this together. 

No we’re not. 

And you’re acting as if governing is a child’s game rather than a pursuit of the common good. But it’s not a game. Our common good has depended on the sacrifices of generations of American service men and women, first responders, teachers, social workers, and public leaders who dedicated their lives to this nation. 

I don’t have to listen to your speeches. 

Look, I get it: Coping with immigration is difficult. It requires hard thought and hard work. 

You betcha. 

But you’re giving it neither. 

Interview over!

I’m told you have presidential ambitions, Governor. If so, you might start acting like a statesman rather than doing stunts that make you a cynical clown.

Americans Support Biden's View Of Immigration Reform

The charts above reflect the results of the recent Data for Progress / Vox Poll -- done between January 29th and February 1st of a national sample of 1,124 voters, with a 2.9 point margin of error.

As you can see, most support the reasonable immigration policies of President Biden.

Trump Is Cruel - Denies Payments To Millions Of Citizens

If there's one thing that Trump enjoys as much as patting himself on the back, it's being cruel. That cruel streak in his personality showed itself again in the distribution of the $1200 Coronavirus payments. He made sure those payments would not go to any U.S. citizen that had a connection to an undocumented immigrant.

Here's how the editorial board of The Washington Post describes Trump's cruel action:

PRESIDENT TRUMP promised that the $2 trillion economic stimulus bill he signed in March, providing direct payments to tens of millions of Americans, would “deliver urgently needed relief to our nation’s families, workers and businesses.” But more out of spite than in the furtherance of any rational policy goal, several million Americans were specifically excluded from the relief plan: U.S. citizens who are children or spouses of undocumented immigrants.

In the midst of a pandemic ravaging the nation, lawmakers and the administration saw fit to insert and enact that provision of the law, for no apparent reason beyond its punitive effect. The vast majority of the nation’s babies, toddlers, middle-schoolers and teenagers younger than 17 are eligible for $500 payments — generally rendered to their parents — but not if either their mother or father is an unauthorized immigrant.

Nor can U.S. citizen parents receive the $1,200 payment to which they would otherwise be entitled if they file taxes jointly with an undocumented spouse. A household consisting of a married couple with two U.S. citizen children, which would otherwise qualify for $3,400 in benefits, would receive nothing if the undocumented mother filed a joint return with her citizen husband.

Singling out children for punishment arising from their parents’ immigration status is a senseless act of vengeance. The Trump administration’s attitudes toward legal and illegal immigrants are morally odious and pragmatically misguided, yet this policy stands out as uniquely cruel given that the immigration status of parents does not exclude their U.S. citizen children from receiving a host of other federal benefits, including welfare, food stamps and housing assistance.

What’s particularly senseless is that the administration’s policy of impoverishing households that include undocumented immigrants coincides with a moment in which the nation’s food supply — heavily dependent on those very immigrants — is in peril. By the government’s own estimate, half of all field hands in the country, more than 1 million workers, are illegal immigrants whose labor has been deemed “essential”to keeping grocery shelves stocked with meat and produce. Other such immigrants may have lost jobs this spring in restaurants or as custodians and child-care workers, and are already struggling to care for their children.

A lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Maryland by advocates at Georgetown University Law Center on behalf of the citizen children of unauthorized immigrants. The plaintiffs include a 7-month-old girl, a 9-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy. The punitive policy will make it more difficult for the children to be adequately fed, housed and clothed at a time of economic duress.

The effect of the measure is to make second-class citizens of several million American children, nearly all born in this country, and to intensify their family’s suffering even as unemployment tightens its grip. The unconstitutionality of such a discriminatory policy, which flies in the face of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process, is rivaled only by its mean-spiritedness.

Jails, Prisons, Detention - Sitting Ducks For Coronavirus

(The image on the right is from change.org.)

Maybe it's because I spent most of my working life in various aspects of law enforcement, but I have been thinking about this since it became obvious that we are in a pandemic with the Coronavirus. While the media is obsessed with what people must do to protect themselves, I have heard very little about what is being done to protect the people that society has locked up.

The United States has more people locked up in our prisons and jails than any other country in the world, and it is our responsibility to take care of those people -- including protecting them from a dangerous virus. And the Trump administration has added to this problem by keeping thousands of people in detention (undocumented immigrants) -- people whose only "crime" was to come to this country to better take care of their families.

Adding to the problem is the fact that most prisons, jails, and detention facilities are overcrowded. There is simply no way to initiate "social distancing" in these facilities. That means when the virus enters a facility, it will spread quickly -- endangering both inmates and employees.

Some facilities have started to limit the people who can enter a facility -- like family or friends visiting. But you also have attorneys (and denying them would raise constitutional questions). You also have many employees entering every day, and even if without symptoms, they could be carrying the virus in to the facility.

Some of you may not care about this population, saying they are just criminals. That's a mean and short-sighted view. While the people broke a criminal law (except for the undocumented immigrants), many of them will be rehabilitated, and spend the rest of their lives as hard-working and tax-paying citizens. We must give them that chance. They were locked up to be punished (and I have no problem with that), but they were not locked up to be killed.

The system may need to consider some rather extreme measures -- like paroling all non-violent offenders. That would allow some "social distancing" for the violent offenders we shouldn't parole. We should also beef up the medical care provided in the facilities (some of which are already sub-par). And it is time to close the detention facilities holding undocumented immigrants, and return to previous immigration policy.

How we treat those we lock up says a lot about what kind of country and people we are. We already look bad because we lock up so many more people than any other country. Do we want to make it worse by unnecessarily killing them? I hope not.