Trump’s Mass Deportation Plan: A Recipe for Economic and Human Disaster
Claudia Hernandez, Senior Communications Manager
With the election less than two months away, Donald Trump continues to tout his plans for “the largest deportation operation in American history,” an operation he recently said would necessarily be a “bloody story.” Forcibly removing millions of undocumented immigrants (and likely countless U.S. citizens in the process) from the U.S. is one of Trump’s favorite rallying calls and, as Jamelle Bouie notes, one of his most common answers to a range of policy issues: immigration, housing, jobs, you name it.
While the rhetoric may energize his base, the real-world implications of his plan are staggering and merit more scrutiny. Experts widely agree that mass deportations would destabilize key industries, harm economic growth, and tear apart countless American families in the process.
Immigrants Fuel the U.S. Economy—Mass Deportations Would Grind It to a Halt
It’s no exaggeration: immigrants are the backbone of some of the most important sectors of the U.S. economy. According to U.S. Census data, nearly 20 million immigrants work in essential industries across health, infrastructure, manufacturing, service, food, safety, and more. Undocumented immigrants in particular make up 27% of these essential workers, accounting for 5% of the total U.S. workforce according to Pew Research. Deporting millions of these immigrant workers would inevitably exacerbate massive labor gaps that would cripple production, shutter businesses, and increase costs for consumers.
And it’s not just labor. As Carlos Eduardo Espina reminded us at the Democratic National Convention this year, immigrants pay taxes. Undocumented immigrants collectively pay nearly $12 billion in state and local taxes every year. This includes more than $7 billion in sales and excise taxes, $3.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.1 billion in personal income taxes. Under another Trump administration, states would lose this revenue.
What’s more, conservative estimates suggest the cost of executing mass deportations would total $150 billion, or roughly $14,000 per individual removed. The Economist predicts the cumulative blow to GDP would stretch into the trillions. Trump’s rebuttal, that deportations will “give jobs back to Americans,” fails to acknowledge the reality: most jobs filled by undocumented immigrants are those U.S.-born workers are unwilling to take—low-wage, physically demanding, or seasonal. Far from “stealing jobs,” immigrants are more likely to create them, meaning the mass removal of these workers would hurt, not help, native-born Americans.
The Reality Behind Mass Deportation: Family Separation
At its core, Trump’s mass deportation plan isn’t about protecting jobs or boosting the economy—it’s a calculated strategy to deepen divisions in the country by using immigration as a scapegoat, fueling fears that undocumented workers are responsible for societal issues. This narrative isn’t just inaccurate—it’s dangerous, because the true cost of a mass deportation operation is the devastation it would inflict on families. Millions of children in mixed-status households would be ripped away from their parents and loved ones, inflicting irreparable trauma and leaving entire communities shattered.
This means little to Trump, who will undoubtedly continue his anti-immigrant crusade through election day. But the American people know that immigrants make our country stronger and, when faced with a choice, overwhelmingly prefer a path to citizenship (61% support) for undocumented immigrants over mass deportations (39%). The nation will never forget the cries of the over 5,000 children he separated in 2018. And this November, they’ll have the opportunity to reject Donald Trump’s inhumane agenda and instead, vote to keep families together.
