Mass deportation could put 28 million people at risk of family separation

More than 28 million members of mixed immigration status families in the United States are at risk of deportation or family separation if mass deportation policies such as those with the support of former President Donald Trump, will come into force next year, according to report from FWD.us, an immigration advocacy organization. Mass deportation is already known carry a steep economic losses. The moral cost can be just as high.

Approximately 11.3 million U.S. residents and 2.4 million legal permanent residents live in mixed-status households, which definite at least one undocumented person living with at least one U.S. citizen, green card holder, or other lawful temporary immigrant. Undocumented residents include those receiving protections such as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

The cost of Trump’s proposed mass deportation plan could reach almost 1 trillion dollars due to lower labor income and federal taxes. Earlier this year Trump promised end TPS for Haitian immigrants, and in 2020 he tried to end DACA, which the Supreme Court blocked (although the program is still face to face legal problems).

A newsletter Representatives of the American Immigration Council (AIC), a nonprofit pro-immigration organization, note that U.S. citizens who are children of undocumented immigrants have a higher risk of depression, anxiety and severe psychological distress after a parent is detained or deported. Having a family member detained or deported is also associated with higher rates of suicidal ideation, alcohol use and aggression among Latino teens, according to research cited by AIC.

Mass deportations continue to enjoy widespread support, despite the moral costs of separating families.. August 2024 vote from the Pew Research Center found that 56 percent of registered voters were either strongly or somewhat in favor of “enforcing mass deportations.” However, in the same poll, 61 percent of registered voters said undocumented immigrants should be allowed to “remain in the country legally if certain requirements are met.”

Some have attributed This discrepancy results in voters who do not understand the problem, but still want some action. The potential moral and economic costs of mass deportation are numerous and complex, and they can vary widely depending on the specific plan.

A working paper from the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), an economic policy think tank, examines the potential economic consequences of mass deportation.

It describes two scenarios: “a low estimate based on President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s deportation of 1.3 million people in 1956 in what became known as Operation Wetback, and a high estimate based on data from the Pew Research Center.” study An estimated 8.3 million U.S. workers were unauthorized in 2022.”

Both will damage the US economy. The low scenario, which assumes the deportation of 1.3 million undocumented workers by 2028, would reduce GDP by 1.2 percent compared to the base forecast. A high-quality scenario in which 8.3 million undocumented workers would be deported would result in a 7.4 percent decline in GDP compared to the 2028 baseline scenario.

Michael A. Clemens, PIIE Senior Fellow and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, indicates that similar consequences have already been felt as a result of mass deportations in the recent past.

Clemens says Cause that “massive deportations under (Barack) Obama led to a permanent loss of jobs for local residents: every 100 deportations resulted in a permanent loss of 8.8 locally owned jobs in each county.” This was due to fewer immigrant consumers and fewer business owners investing their capital in less skilled and more labor intensive industries.

If Trump achieves 3 million deportations per year, that “would mean 263,000 deportations per year.” less jobs occupied by native US workers are exacerbated each additional year that mass deportations continue.” according to Clemens.

Anti-immigration policies that support mass deportation efforts such as Operation Wetback ignore how pro-immigration policies offset the economic costs of the initiative. for Clemens. For example, the Bracero Program, which began under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and continued under Eisenhower, increased the number of legal, temporary and work visas for Mexican workers. This shifted “the mutually beneficial international supply of labor from the black market to legal channels.” wrote Clemens.

Mass deportation is costly and morally corrupt. Instead of proposing blanket plans that won’t fix the immigration system, the government should look for a better alternative. solution— make legal immigration more feasible.