WASHINGTON (AP) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation event in U.S. history if elected, but that promise is based on several assumptions: There is a belief that immigrants in the United States are stealing what Trump is saying. “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”
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But government data shows that migrant labor contributes to economic growth and provides advancement opportunities for native-born workers. And a mass deportation could cost U.S. taxpayers up to $1 trillion and cause the cost of living, including food and housing, to soar, economists say.
Here’s a look at immigration, the US labor market, and what President Trump’s plan means for the US economy.
What did Trump say?
Trump, who frequently uses anti-immigrant rhetoric, has referred to immigrants taking “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” during his campaign.
“This is an invasion of people against our country,” President Trump said at a recent rally in Reading, Pennsylvania.
“They will attack, and have already attacked, jobs for the black population, jobs for the Hispanic population, and they are attacking union jobs,” Trump said. “So when you look at the border, it’s not just crime. It’s also taking your job.”
President Trump’s comments on jobs have been widely condemned by Democrats and black leaders as a racist and derogatory way of implying that black and Hispanic Americans have unskilled jobs.
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Janiya Thomas, director of Team Trump Black Media, told The Associated Press that Democrats “continue to prioritize the interests of illegal immigrants over the interests of Black Americans born in this country” during the Biden administration. The increase in employment in the labor market is mainly due to illegal immigration.
According to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey data, as of 2023, native-born Black workers are primarily employed in management and financial operations, sales and office support roles, while native-born Black workers It shows that Latino workers are most commonly employed in managerial positions. , office support, sales and service occupations.
Foreign-born non-national black workers are most represented in transportation and medical support roles, and foreign-born non-national Hispanic workers are most represented in construction, building and grounds cleaning. many.
How did immigrants contribute to the growth of the United States?
In 2023, international immigrants, primarily from Latin America, will account for more than two-thirds of U.S. population growth and have accounted for nearly three-quarters of U.S. population growth so far this decade .
After hitting a record high in December 2023, the number of migrants crossing the border has plummeted.
The argument that immigrants are taking job opportunities away from native-born Americans has been repeated by Trump’s advisers. They often cite a report prepared by Stephen Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-wing think tank that calls for reducing the flow of immigrants into the United States. The report combines employment numbers for legal and illegal U.S. immigrants and argues that foreign nationals are disproportionately driving growth in the U.S. workforce and reaping most of its benefits.
According to the Camarota report, there were 971,000 more U.S.-born Americans and 3.2 million more employed immigrants in May 2024 compared to pre-pandemic May 2019. .
It is true that international immigration has been a major driver of population growth over the past decade, as fewer children are being born in the United States than in previous years. This is according to the American Community Survey, which is conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Are immigrants taking jobs from native-born workers?
Economists who study the impact of immigrant workers on the economy say people living in the U.S. illegally are not taking jobs away from natives, because the roles these immigrant workers take on are less likely to be taken up by natives, such as in agriculture. He says this is because it is often a position that workers are reluctant to take. and food processing work.
Giovanni Peri, a labor economist at the University of California, Davis, conducted a study examining the impact of the 1980 influx of Cuban immigrants to Miami (the so-called Mariel Boatlift) on the employment of black workers. The study found that wages for black and Hispanic workers in Miami exceeded wages in other cities that didn’t see a surge in immigrant workers.
Peri told The Associated Press that the presence of new immigrant workers improves employment outcomes for mainland-born workers, who often have a different language and skill set than new immigrants.
Additionally, the number of jobs is not fixed in the United States, and immigrants tend to contribute to the survival of existing businesses (opening new opportunities for native workers), and currently have more jobs than available workers. exists. People from the United States are less interested in working in labor-intensive agricultural and food production roles.
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“There are far more vacancies than there are workers for this type of manual labor, and we actually need more people to fill these roles,” Peri said.
Stan Marek, whose Houston construction company Marek Brothers Holdings LLC employs about 1,000 workers, said he has seen this firsthand.
Asked whether illegal immigrants in the United States were taking jobs from native-born workers, he said, “Absolutely not, that’s clear.”
“Many of our employees are retired and their children are not going to go into construction or the trades,” Malek said. He added that the United States needs an identification system that addresses national security concerns so that undocumented immigrants can work.
“There’s not enough blue-collar workforce here,” he says.
The data also shows that when there are not enough workers to fill these roles, companies automate operations by investing in machinery and technology rather than relying on local workers.
Ethan Lewis, an economist at Dartmouth College, said, “There’s a huge body of research on the labor market effects of immigration in the United States, and most of it shows a fairly small effect on unskilled workers, but rather on U.S.-born jobs.” We conclude that the impact is small.” Rather than being “taken away” by immigrants, workers may have been created themselves. ”
How will mass deportations affect the economy?
President Trump said he would deploy the National Guard based on governors’ orders and focus on rounding up immigrants.
Peri said the deportation program would cost the U.S. up to $1 trillion, a huge loss to the U.S. economy. The price of food and other necessities will rise.
“They contribute so much to our economy. If deportation efforts go ahead, we won’t have fruit and vegetables, we won’t have gardens,” he said. Ta.
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He estimates that mass deportations would cost about $1 trillion, since the U.S. illegal alien workforce accounts for about 4% of annual U.S. gross domestic product.
“This is a mind-boggling cost in terms of lost revenue, lost production, and there will be logistical costs to organize this,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a podcast interview with David Axelrod this month that immigrant labor is “an important source of workforce growth.”
“At the end of the day, you contribute to economic growth without actually taking away other people’s jobs,” she says. “This is by no means a zero-sum game.”
