Donald Trump had noted his priority upon taking office in January would be to make the border “strong and powerful”. This proposal by Trump to deport millions of undocumented immigrants has raised significant concerns among economists and policymakers. They have warned that such an action could precipitate an economic downturn rivaling the Great Depression, according to a TOI report.
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Trump’s deportation plan could hurt more than Great Recession?
A report by Democrats in the Congressional Joint Economic Committee says that Trump’s campaign promise of sweeping deportations could result in “severe economic fallout,” devastating the economy even more than the Great Recession. The report sheds light on severe consequences of Trump administration’s proposed mass deportation policy.
Immigrants play a crucial role in the US economy, contributing billions in taxes, powering industries, and driving entrepreneurship. Deporting millions of undocumented immigrants would disrupt key sectors, shrink GDP, and trigger price hikes across the board, according to the committee’s analysis, the report said.
ALSO READ: Mark Zuckerberg’s gold-plated chain sold at auction for nearly 100 times its market value. He wore it only onceThe US Congress Joint Economic Committee Report said, “Deporting immigrants will not only upend their lives but also harm the US economy through reduced economic growth, a smaller labor force, lost jobs, and higher costs to the detriment of all Americans.” (sic)The Great Recession ran from 2007 to 2009 and was spurred by the bursting housing bubble.
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The report states that Trump’s deportation plan would not only make the lives of migrants difficult but could “reduce economic growth, shrink the labor force, cost U.S.-born workers their jobs, raise costs for nearly all Americans, and risk igniting inflation.”
The American Immigration Council estimated that if the US deported one million people each year until the country no longer had an undocumented population, it could lead to a 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent loss in GDP. “To put this in context, the economy shrank by 4.3 percent during the Great Recession,” the Democrats wrote.
Deportation would lower America’s GDP
Estimates from the Peterson Institute for International Economics showed even grimmer economic consequences. After analyzing how the deportation of 8.3 million undocumented immigrants would impact the US economy, the think tank found that the GDP would be 7.4 percent lower by 2028, according to a report in The Independent.
“This 7.4 percent reduction in GDP over four years would likely mean that the U.S. economy would not grow at all during President Trump’s second term,” the report says.
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Employment would also be 7 percent lower by the end of Trump’s term, the institute found, and 44,000 US-born workers would lose their jobs.
“Employers would not simply hire US-born workers to fill the vacancies created by undocumented workers who are deported, as there would be too many vacancies, US-born workers would be unlikely to move into these industries, and employer hiring behavior can be variable,” the report says. Even though undocumented immigrants only make up about 4.4 percent and 5.4 percent of the overall labour force, they have enormous roles in certain industries: construction, agriculture, health care and hospitality.
Labour shortages would shoot up costs
Trump’s proposed mass deportations would remove up to 1.5 million workers from the construction industry, 225,000 from agriculture, one million from hospitality, 870,000 from manufacturing and 461,000 from transportation and warehousing, AIC estimated.
These labour shortages could also lead to increased costs across the board. Deporting 1.3 million immigrants would raise prices by 1.5 percent by 2028, while deporting 8.3 million immigrants would raise prices by 9.1 percent, the institute predicted.
By taking undocumented immigrants out of the equation, the US is also losing a group of consumers, leading to reduced spending, the report says.
The Congressional Joint Economic Committee Chair Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) called Trump’s plan for mass deportations “reckless.”
“Trump’s plan to deport millions of immigrants does absolutely nothing to address the core problems driving our broken immigration system,” the New Mexico Democrat said. “Instead, all it will do is raise grocery prices, destroy jobs, and shrink the economy. His immigration policy is reckless and would cause irreparable harm to our economy.”