The economy will suffer.
By Donald Kerwin, J.D.
Editor
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Donald Trump’s inauguration arrives in just a few weeks, and with it the promise that the new president will quickly try to make good on one of his most troubling and damaging priorities: the mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.
If successful, this plan would undermine the administration’s economic, budget-cutting and bureaucracy-reduction goals, while devastating families. The president-elect has incessantly described the undocumented as polluters of the nation’s blood, as criminals, animals, invaders and worse. Yet undocumented immigrants have long tenure here and are linchpins in essential occupations and industries — raising the question of how mass deportation became the centerpiece of the incoming administration’s agenda.
The concept is hardly new. The US has been carrying out large-scale deportations for decades. Congress and successive administrations have invested massive amounts in immigration enforcement, roughly a nine-fold increase in real dollars since 2002. Yet Trump surrogates insist his plan will require “massive” additional investments.
Trump’s last White House tour saw fewer annual immigrant removals than in previous administrations. For his second act, he has vowed to deport a record 1 million people per year and to seal the US-Mexico border. Neither will happen, but the plan will have severe consequences for immigrants.
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