Gloria Solis immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1998. To provide for my four children, I work in Washington state’s agricultural sector. She is one of an estimated 31 million foreign-born workers in the U.S., documented or undocumented, who help drive the U.S. economy.
She worries that if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wins, the life she has built for herself and her family will be in jeopardy.
Mr. Trump has made the issue of immigration, which will be an issue in this election, one of the pillars of his campaign. The role of immigrants in the startup economy is well known – 55 percent of U.S. startups valued at $1 billion or more were founded by immigrants, and some of Silicon Valley’s most famous names include Tesla boss Elon and foreign-born entrepreneurs. Musk and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
However, what is often overlooked is the importance of immigrants, including illegal immigrants, in other sectors of American society and the economy.
In his comments, Trump drew a clear line on who would be welcome in the United States if elected the next U.S. president. In June, he promised to issue “green cards to anyone who graduates from any college, even a two-year community college,” a claim he later retracted.
He has also publicly stated that he wants to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. His plan, supported by supporters like Stephen Miller, who served as his top adviser during his first term, was inspired by 1950s policies introduced by then-President Dwight Eisenhower. There is. Millions of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico.
Economists, as well as human rights groups, have condemned President Trump’s plan.
A Moody’s Analytics report earlier this year said President Trump’s immigration policies would cause a “significant tightening of an already tight job market,” leading to jobs that depend on many of these workers, including health care, retail, agriculture, and more. It will have a major impact on economic sectors such as construction, he said. .
labor shortage
President Trump claims that deportations will increase job opportunities for native-born workers, but a look at these areas suggests things don’t always work out that way.
For example, an estimated 1.7 million undocumented immigrants work in the food supply chain, between farms, food processing facilities, and supermarkets, according to the Center for American Progress.
According to a University of Arkansas study, 73% of agricultural workers are immigrants, and 48% of them are undocumented workers. In California, 9 out of 10 farmers are foreign-born, like Solis.
Miller, who worked as an aide to a member of Congress before joining the Trump administration, now runs American First Legal, a legal organization focused on conservative causes. “Mass deportation would be a labor market disruption that American workers would celebrate,” he said in an interview with the New York Times last November. They will be provided with welfare benefits,” he said.
But “farmers have said time and time again that they cannot find labor locally,” Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers, told Al Jazeera.
In 2019, more than half of California farmers said they were having trouble finding workers. If President Trump has his way, these shortages are largely expected to get worse.
According to a study published in the Journal of Labor Economics, for every 1 million immigrant workers deported, 88,000 American jobs are lost. When companies lose workers, they are less likely to expand employment opportunities and more likely to use the savings to invest in technology that can automate tasks.
Michael Clemens, an economics professor at George Mason University, told Al Jazeera: “The impact of that policy is enormous and it’s having a negative impact on the U.S. economy…including on Americans.” .
Trump’s deportation plan “will not only impact the lives of farmworkers, it will impact all of us. We will continue to support their work to ensure food is on our tables. ,” Romero added.
One study found that a complete ban on migrant labor would increase the price of milk by 90%.
The role of these workers is not limited to the U.S. food supply chain. Undocumented immigrants make up more than 346,000 workers in the health sector, including 236,300 in roles such as personal care, home aides, and nursing assistants.
The United States is already facing a shortage of medical workers. For example, there are approximately 12,000 nursing assistant job openings in Texas alone, and more than 14,000 in California, according to Mercer Health.
Similarly, the construction sector relies overwhelmingly on foreign-born workers. In immigrant-heavy states like Texas and California, immigrant workers make up 40 percent of the sector’s workforce. Additionally, a report from the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) found that some jobs, such as completion carpentry, have construction labor shortages of as much as 65%. Mass deportations will exacerbate that shortage.
President Trump also blamed immigrants for the current housing shortage, saying they take up some of the limited housing supply that would otherwise go to documented immigrants and native-born Americans. He claimed that there was.
President Trump said in a speech at the New York Economic Club that he would ban home loans to illegal immigrants, but as Al Jazeera previously reported, these loans represent only a small portion of total home loans. On the contrary, his proposal for blanket tariffs would raise construction costs, especially on wood and steel imports, and push home prices even higher.
President Trump’s policy proposals have implications for other sectors, including transportation, where undocumented workers account for 6% of the workforce, and leisure and hospitality, where undocumented workers account for 8.4%.
The Trump campaign did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request to clarify how the former president would address the deepening labor shortage if he is re-elected in November.
Household income plummets
A key part of President Trump’s plan is to eliminate the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The law, introduced during former U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration, protects people who came to the U.S. as children without documents from deportation.
Trump’s attempts to end DACA as president were blocked by the Supreme Court, but he has vowed to try again if re-elected. That would affect more than 500,000 people and their families living in the United States under DACA protection.
“The biggest impact is that families could be separated. If President Trump does what he said he’s going to do to remove all illegal aliens, then of course my children, who are American citizens, will lose their parents,” Solis told Al Jazeera.
In addition to impacting Soli and families like hers, this will have a major impact on average household incomes in immigrant communities.
A Center for Migration Research report released during the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021 found that removing undocumented immigrants from mixed-status households would reduce average household income by 47%.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, an estimated 33% of undocumented immigrants have at least one child who is a U.S. citizen. The Solis family fits this mold. Gloria has four children, all of whom are American-born citizens.
revenue void
It’s not just immigrants who are affected, but the tax revenue they bring in as well.
Illegal immigrants paid $96.7 billion in taxes in 2022, about $60 billion of which went to the federal government. Immigrants paid $25.7 billion into U.S. Social Security programs that were not available to them. President Trump’s plan would undermine these workers and limit the tax revenue that would fuel the U.S. economy.
“If they could be deported, we would not only be missing out on their hard work, but we would be missing out on their additional income,” said Scott, a senior policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Marco Guzman says: he told Al Jazeera.
A report by the nonpartisan Peterson Institute found that deporting 7.5 million immigrants would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by 6.2%. And these estimates still fall far short of the impact of President Trump’s ideal plan to deport 11 million immigrants.
Alternatively, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that based on current trends, new immigrants will bring in $788 billion in tax revenue over the next 10 years.
Goldman Sachs said in March that increased immigration would slightly increase economic output (by three-tenths of a percentage point).
Neither Miller nor the Trump campaign responded to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
