It’s Getting Very Ugly: The High Cost of Mass Deportation

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Washington, DC — A pastor and father of five deported. Empty church pews as parishioners fear ICE raids on holy ground. Dairy farm workers grabbed in Vermont. Mom-and-pop stores in Kansas face economic uncertainty. These are some of the examples of the high costs of the Trump/Miller mass deportation crusade. As a result, Americans are recoiling from the administration’s efforts to purge America of immigrants. As we highlight in our new polling memo, mass deportation is growing increasingly unpopular. Notably, the inherent cruelty and abuse of power on display – threaten to become worse after the budget bill’s massive expansion of ICE funding

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

“It’s getting very ugly. Racial profiling, raiding churches, deporting religious leaders, sending troops to invade agriculture fields. These are just a few real-world examples of the vicious Trump/Miller mass deportation blitzkrieg destroying our economy, our communities, and our democratic way of life. The unchecked abuse of power and all-out assault on our immigrant neighbors, the militarization of our streets, and the dismantling of due process and the rule of law is about to get a whole lot worse thanks to the Republican budget bill. As faith and business voices are making clear – no community, red or blue, is immune from the destruction that is mass deportation.”

All Americans will pay the price for mass deportation – it is already a moral stain in our nation in addition to being an economic catastrophe. Republican voters and traditional communities aren’t immune, as the assorted faith and business voices are making clear.”

See below for key stories grouped into the types of costs and consequences already on display due to the Trump administration’s deportation agenda:

Faith Voices

• The Christian Post, “Pastor, father of 5 deported to Guatemala after 2 decades in Florida” noted,

“A pastor who led a small Hispanic church in Florida was deported to Guatemala after more than two decades of living in the United States, leaving his wife and five children feeling that the world as they knew it had come to an end.”

• The Los Angeles Times, “L.A.-Area Bishop Excuses Faithful From Mass Over Fear of Immigration Raids” noted,

“Bishop Alberto Rojas, the leader of the Roman Catholic community of about 1.6 million worshipers in Southern California, said in a letter on Tuesday that members who face a “genuine fear of immigration enforcement actions” if they attend Mass on Sundays or holidays are “dispensed from this obligation.” The bishop’s message was issued as a formal decree.”

• The Bulwark, “A Religious Rebellion Against Mass Deportation” noted,

“But what’s newly interesting is the possibility that mass deportation could be creating particular problems for Trump among churchgoing Catholics and Protestants, groups that have disproportionately supported him in the past. There appears to be growing unease in the churches with Trump’s signature policy”

• Newsweek, “Catholic Bishops Trash Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Passing” noted,

“In a letter sent to the Senate ahead of the vote, a coalition of Christian leaders warned that money put aside for mass deportations would “separate US families, harm US-citizen and immigrant children, and sow chaos in local communities.” Jewish leaders have also spoken out against the bill, with Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah, a human rights advocacy group, saying: “Today, we see the sins of Sodom being repeated in this bill, which is written from a place of arrogance, cruelty, and selfishness. We fear that, like Sodom, these sins will lead to our destruction.””

Business and Economic voices

• Politico, “‘Essential isn’t a strong enough word’: Loss of foreign workers begins to bite US economy” noted,

“From small farms in California, to meat packing facilities in Nebraska to corporate giants like Disney, businesses are scrambling to replace workers after recent administration actions have taken immigrants, both legal and illegal, out of the labor force, including several hundred thousand people who had been given temporary work permits under President Joe Biden. That’s because foreign-born workers, or their relatives, have become critical in some labor sectors.

‘Essential isn’t a strong enough word,’ said Matt Teagarden, head of the Kansas Livestock Association. ‘It is some version of an immigrant, maybe not first generation, but second or third generation, that are just critical to that work.'”

• The Washington Post, “Trump can’t achieve his economic goals without more immigrants” noted,

“Our group, Unleash Prosperity, examined the economic and demographic effects of immigrants on American society, using the latest census data. We found that the U.S. economy is already super dependent on immigrants. Over the past decade, just under half of all new civilian workers, almost 6 million, have been immigrants. The majority of them entered the country legally.

Here is an even more jaw-dropping statistic on the need for expanded visas: Because of our inverted population pyramid, immigrants will contribute virtually all of the net increase in the American workforce over the next two decades. Without continued immigration, the U.S. workforce would start shrinking.”

• The Wall Street Journal Editorial, “The Economic Drain of Mass Deportation” noted,

“The loss side of the ledger is that mass deportation of productive employees will drain economic growth and make it harder for Mr. Trump to deliver a return to the prosperity of his pre-Covid first term. Consider an economic paper published Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “Our analysis,” the authors say, “raises the concern that a sharp tightening of immigration policies has the potential to substantially reduce output growth.””

• Associated Press, “A Vermont dairy farm was raided. The mixed messages from Washington since then have increased fears” noted,

“Nearly two-thirds of all milk production in New England comes from Vermont, where more than half the state’s farmland is dedicated to dairy and dairy crops. There are roughly 113,000 cows and 7,500 goats spread across 480 farms, according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, which pegs the industry’s annual economic impact at $5.4 billion.

That impact has more than doubled in the last decade, with widespread help from immigrant labor. More than 90% of the farms surveyed for the agency’s recent report employed migrant workers.”

• NPR, “Immigration crackdown hurts small businesses in Kansas dependent on migrant customers” noted,

“Immigrants without legal status wield an enormous amount of buying power. The American Immigration Council says in 2023, it totaled nearly $300 billion. The money is often spent at stores along streets like Central Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas.”

• CNBC, “Amazon warehouse workers lose jobs after Trump’s immigration crackdown: ‘We have done everything legally’” noted,

“A notice from DHS told [Daphnee] Poteau that her parole program was being terminated. Her last day at Amazon was June 28. She’s among a group of warehouse workers whose jobs have been eliminated since DHS revoked the parole program that was created during the Biden administration.

While Poteau tries to secure a spousal visa, her future in the U.S. is uncertain. She and Vincent, who’s from Indiana, said they’re concerned about being able to afford rent and costly immigration fees.”