The News
President-elect Donald Trump seems intent on fulfilling his hardline immigration proposals, an ambition reflected in the people he has so far chosen to staff the administration.
Thomas Homan, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief, will be his “border czar,” while long-time Trump aide Stephen Miller was named his deputy chief of staff, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has reportedly been tapped to head homeland security. All of them have rallied behind the president-elect’s promise to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants living in the US. However, experts have questioned both the financial and logistical wisdom of attempting to deport an estimated 10 to 12 million people.
Economists have also warned that the program could exact a considerable toll on the US economy, and further destabilize Latin America.
SIGNALS
Mass deportations could raise food, housing prices
If Donald Trump follows through on deporting all undocumented migrants, critical industries — including construction and agriculture — could lose an estimated one in eight workers, ultimately leading to US GDP shrinking by as much as $1.7 trillion, according to one analysis. Migrants have helped fill the labor shortages these industries saw in the post-COVID-19 period, and rapidly removing these workers from the US labor pool without replacing them could raise both house and food prices, as these sectors would essentially be “paralyzed” by the sudden loss of workers, the leader of one construction trade group told CNBC.
Specialized immigration also at risk
The H-1B visa, designed for foreigners to work in the US in high-skilled sectors like tech, is also in the spotlight. Trump’s decision to appoint Stephen Miller, known for his outspoken opposition to legal immigration, could signal a rolling back of the scheme, India Today wrote. While the program is unlikely to be scrapped, people pursuing H-1Bs may find the process “more bureaucratic, more delayed, with more requirements imposed,” a researcher at libertarian think tank the Cato Institute said, which could ultimately deter high-skilled immigrating to the US. In Silicon Valley, there’s “a sense of the need to prepare,” an immigration attorney told Business Insider, with many tech leaders hoping that Elon Musk might moderate Trump’s stance on the program.
Economic, security impact reverberates beyond US
Deporting millions of undocumented immigrants to Mexico — which the Trump team has suggested would be cheaper and easier than sending them to more distant Latin American countries — could “create chaos in areas already suffering from poverty and organized crime,” immigration experts told The Washington Post. Mexico’s economy would take a significant hit from the drop in remittances US migrants send to family members back home, estimated to exceed $60 billion in 2023. And with Mexican cartels largely in control of many northern parts of the country, “migrants are going to be more vulnerable” to organized crime, according to one migrant activist.