As the Cost and Cruelty of Mass Deportation Mount, Employers and American Majority Call for Better Way Forward

Access online version of the press release HERE

Washington, DC — The growing human and economic costs of the mass deportation agenda could not be more clear. Across the country, employers and industry leaders are speaking out against the unnecessary cruelty and costs of attacking immigrant workers. They join the broad majority of Americans in recoiling and asking, “isn’t there a better way?” such as offering a pathway to citizenship for long-settled, hardworking, tax-paying immigrants currently being swept up in the mass deportation dragnet.

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

“Those being caught up in the Trump mass deportation dragnet are the exact types of individuals a strong majority of the American public wants to remain in America to have the opportunity to become legal workers and U.S. citizens. Legal pathways would better advance our nation’s values, security, and economic interests than the cruelty, chaos and mounting costs of Trump’s mass deportations and broader anti-immigrant agenda.”

Among the latest examples of the overreach, cruelty and costs of mass deportation include:

• The New York Times, “Hawaii’s Prized Kona Coffee Fields Have Become a Target for ICE,” noting: “Bruce Cornwell, 72, who grows and processes his coffee and that of other farmers for the U.S. and international markets, said: ‘These are good, hard workers. They aren’t gang members.’ … Mr. Cornwell said that workers should be offered pathways to immigrate legally, rather than be rounded up … ‘If we don’t have these immigrant workers, our coffee will be hurting … The government should make it easier for these people to come here and work.’”

• Washington Post, “After ICE visits, D.C. restaurants fear labor shortage,” noting, “In the days since May 6, when agents with the Department of Homeland Security began demanding paperwork from restaurants across Washington to prove their employees were eligible to work in the country, cooks and servers at multiple establishments have quit, no-showed or requested time off. The sudden talent void has prompted fears that restaurants could face a worker shortage, potentially leading to more closures in an industry already expected to contract this year …

• CBS News, “Georgia teen arrested by ICE faces deportation, despite dismissed traffic charges: ‘My life is here’,” noting: “A 19-year-old Mexican-born Georgia woman who has lived in the U.S. since she was 4 continues to face deportation, despite the dismissal of the traffic charges that led Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest her. In her first interview since being detained by ICE, Ximena Arias Cristobal told CBS News her biggest worry is not being able to stay in Georgia, after spending most of her life — around 15 years — in the U.S. ‘My life is here, and I’m scared I’m going to have to start all over again in a country that I don’t know.’”

• South Dakota Searchlight, “ICE makes 8 arrests in South Dakota city where Noem was subjected to a protest three days earlier,” noting: “U.S. immigration officials conducted a ‘worksite enforcement action’ that resulted in eight arrests Tuesday in Madison, three days after their boss, Kristi Noem, was subjected to a protest in the same South Dakota city … A student who graduated Saturday, Carter Gordon, said the dual immigration enforcement action in Madison ‘reeks of retribution … You could make the argument that they would’ve happened even had she not been protested, but it feels very vengeful.”

As America’s Voice detailed in our recent memo synthesizing immigration polling and related political implications, when offered the choice in polling, a strong majority of the American public prefers a balanced approach to immigration, involving a path to legal status for long-residing undocumented immigrants (along with targeted enforcement against criminals and border security), instead of Trump’s enforcement-only and mass deportation approach (see more here).