Self-Inflicted Damage: Mass Deportation Economically Devastating and Politically Unpopular

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Washington, DC — As the Donald Trump/Stephen Miller assault on immigrant communities, our economy and our safety marches on, America’s Voice continues to ask, “At what cost” to America is the Trump administration willing to go to advance its mass deportation agenda? As a growing chorus of voices – from business leaders to members of Congress – and analysis underscore, the mounting costs include America’s economic vitality and labor force, as well as Donald Trump’s own political standing as a series of polls make clear.

According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

“Donald Trump’s chaotic mass deportation campaign is not just an economic fiasco but also a political blunder. Leading industry and economic voices from across the nation continue sounding the alarm at the growing harm of the Trump/Miller mass deportation crusade. Trump’s recent flip-flop and backtrack on pausing raids only compounds the confusion and frustration. Yet the costs to America go well beyond economic growth and harm our communities, families and our public safety as well. Despite this, Trump and Miller are moving full steam ahead on their plans to purge our country of immigrants.

Little wonder that Americans are reacting in disgust from watching mass deportation in action, whether it’s learning that a high school soccer star was deported away from his family in Ohio or seeing images of the cherry crop in Central Washington going unpicked due to worker fears and shortages. Trump’s deportations are increasingly unpopular and rightly strike Americans as ‘capricious and unfair’” (as pollster Molly Murphy said in the WSJ story below).

Among the growing chorus of voices highlighting business and economic harms include:

●     Associated Press, “ICE raids and their uncertainty scare off workers and baffle businesses,” including: “‘It really is clear to me that the people pushing for these raids that target farms and feed yards and dairies have no idea how farms operate,’ Matt Teagarden, CEO of the Kansas Livestock Association, said.”

●     New York Times, “Trump Travel Restrictions Bar Residents Needed at U.S. Hospitals,” noting, “Travel and visa restrictions imposed by the Trump administration threaten patient care at hundreds of hospitals that depend on medical residents recruited from overseas.”

●     Axios, “The immigrants caring for the nation’s elderly are losing their jobs,” noting, “The White House immigration crackdown is hitting the long-term healthcare industry, as nursing homes and care providers lose foreign-born employees and struggle to hire … These folks care for the disabled and for the country’s fast-growing elderly population, and they’re already in short supply.”

●     Reuters, “Immigration raids in Los Angeles hit small business owners: ‘It’s worse than COVID,‘” noting, [a U.S. citizen who runs a fruit and vegetable grocery] “is not alone in seeing President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants in the country illegally devastate his small business. It’s happening across Los Angeles and California … and threatens to significantly damage the local economy.”

●     The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA): “Washington cherry growers struggle to find pickers,” noting, “The threat of federal immigration agents raiding orchards in central Washington is causing a labor shortage that has compelled some Washington producers to leave cherries unpicked or delay their harvests until the fruit overripens and is worth less money.”

And the political and polling damage to Trump is mounting as a result, as this Wall Street Journal analysis from Molly Ball, “Trump Is Losing Political Ground on Immigration,” assesses:

“The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation program is testing the political bounds of what Americans will tolerate, spurring a backlash from voters and some Republicans and testing the administration’s resolve.

…’I may have voted for Trump, but I can’t stay silent about what’s happening with ICE in LA,’ Ryan Garcia, a former interim lightweight boxing champion who endorsed Trump last year, wrote on X. ‘We can have borders without losing our humanity.’

…People are reacting to the way Trump’s immigration policies have played out, and they don’t like what they see, said Democratic pollster Molly Murphy. ‘A majority support the policies, a majority oppose the enforcement,’ she said. People like the idea of tightening the border and cracking down on illegal immigration, but they view the administration’s conduct as capricious and unfair, she said. ‘Trump’s muscularity on immigration has always been a source of strength, but pulling people out of their homes and workplaces and schools seems cruel,’ she said. In her surveys, Americans by a 40-point margin oppose deporting people without due process or in violation of a court order and conducting raids at churches, schools and hospitals.

…in practice, the administration’s approach to the issue has struck many as both erratic and extreme, with high-profile examples of foreign students having their visas revoked, migrants deported in error or without due process, foreign tourists held for questioning, and even some U.S. citizens detained.

Trump-supporting podcaster Joe Rogan deplored the administration’s actions on a recent broadcast, saying, ‘If you got here, and you’ve integrated, maybe you shouldn’t have snuck in. But you did it, and now you’re not breaking any laws, and you’re a hardworking person—those people need a path to citizenship, man.’”