Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rules The largest deportation event the US has ever seen if he were to be elected – he believes in part that immigrants in the US are stealing what he calls “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs”.
But government data shows that immigrant labor contributes to economic growth and offers promotion opportunities to local workers. And a mass deportation incident could cost U.S. taxpayers up to a trillion dollars and raise the cost of living, including food and housing, economists say.
Here’s a look at immigration and the US labor market, and what Trump’s plan would mean for the US economy.
What did Trump say?
Trump, who often uses anti-immigrant rhetoric, has mentioned immigrants who he says are taking “black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” in his campaign.
At a recent rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, Trump said, “You have an invasion of people in our country.”
“They’re going to attack — and they’re already — attacking black jobs, Hispanic jobs, union jobs,” Trump said. “So when you see the border, it’s not just crime. They’re taking away your jobs.”
Trump’s rhetoric has been about jobs strongly condemned by Democrats and black leaders They have seen it as a racist and offensive way of expressing that blacks and Hispanics take menial jobs.
Janiyah Thomas, director of Team Trump Black Media, told the Associated Press that Democrats “continue to prioritize the interests of illegal immigrants over our black Americans who were born in this country” and in the Biden era. earnings they were mainly due to illegal immigration in the labor market.
the last US Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey data shows that black workers born after 2023 are mostly employed in management and financial operations, sales, and office support jobs, while native-born Latino workers are mostly employed in management, office support, sales, and service jobs.
Foreign-born, non-citizen black workers are most over-represented in transportation and health care jobs, and foreign-born, non-citizen Hispanic workers are most over-represented in construction, building and land clearing.
How has immigration contributed to US growth?
In 2023, international migrants—primarily from Latin America—accounted for more than two-thirds of US population growth, and have accounted for nearly three-quarters of US growth so far this decade.
After reaching a record in December 2023, the number of migrants crossing the border has gone down.
Trump advisers repeat claims that immigrants are taking jobs away from native-born Americans. Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank that seeks to reduce the flow of immigration to the US, is often cited. The report combines legal and illegal immigrant labor numbers in the U.S. to strengthen it. they say foreigners are driving disproportionate job growth and reaping most of the profits.
Camarota’s report found that 971,000 more US-born Americans were working in May 2024 than in May 2019, before the pandemic, and the number of employed immigrants increased by 3.2 million.
It is true that international migrants have become a major driver of population growth this decade, and their share of the overall population has been increasing as fewer children are being born in the US compared to previous years. That’s according to the US Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey.
Do immigrants take the jobs of local workers?
Economists who study the impact of immigrant labor on the economy say that people in the US illegally are not taking the jobs of local citizens because the roles these immigrant workers fill are mostly jobs that native workers do not want to fill, such as agriculture. and food processing jobs.
Giovanni Peri, a labor economist at the University of California, Davis, conducted a study examining the impact of the arrival of Cuban immigrants in Miami in 1980 (the so-called Mariel Boatlift) on the employment of black workers. The study found that wages for black and Hispanic workers in Miami moved above those in other cities that did not experience a surge in immigrant workers.
Peri told the AP that the presence of new immigrant labor often improves employment outcomes for native-born workers, who often have different languages and skill sets compared to new immigrants.
Also, there is no fixed number of jobs in the US, immigrants tend to help existing companies survive (by opening up new opportunities for local workers) and there are now more jobs available than workers to fill them. US natives have little interest in working in labor-intensive agriculture and food production.
“We have many more vacancies than workers in this type of work, because we need many more of them to fill these roles,” said Peri.
Stan Marek, a Houston construction company that employs about 1,000 workers, Marek Brothers Holdings LLChe said he has seen this first hand.
When asked if U.S. immigrants are taking jobs from illegal-born workers, he said, “Absolutely not.”
“A lot of my employees are retiring, and their kids aren’t going into construction and the trades,” Marek said. He added that the US needs an identification system that addresses national security concerns so that those in the country illegally can work.
“There aren’t enough blue-collar workers here,” he said.
The data also shows that when there are not enough workers to fill these roles, companies will automate their work with machines and technology investments, rather than turning to local workers.
Economist Ethan Lewis of Dartmouth University said: “There is a large body of research on the impact of immigration on the labor market in the US, most of which conclude that the impact on low-skilled workers is relatively small and, if anything, jobs for US-born workers are created rather than ‘taken’ by immigrants. they can”.
How would mass deportations affect the economy?
Trump said it would focus on rounding up migrants by deploying the National Guard, whose troops can be activated at the behest of a governor.
Peri says that a deportation program would cost the US up to a trillion dollars and cause huge losses to the US economy. The cost of food and other basic items would rise.
“They are a massive contributor to our economy and we wouldn’t have our fruits and vegetables, we wouldn’t have our gardens,” he said, if the deportation effort goes through.
Since the US illegal labor force makes up approximately 4% of US GDP each year, he estimates that mass deportations would result in a loss of around $1 trillion.
“It’s a tangible cost in terms of loss of income, loss of production and there will be a logistical cost of organizing 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 labor force growth.”
“As a result, it helps grow the economy without taking jobs away from other people,” he said. “It’s not a zero-sum game by any means.”
