Stephen Miller’s Teenage Dreams of Mass Deportation Are America’s Nightmare Today

The Cost to American Economy, Due Process & Families is Sky High

Access online version of this press release HERE

Washington, DC — Yesterday, we highlighted Vice President J.D. Vance’s admission that turbocharging mass deportations was his top legislative priority, with Vance noting ahead of the U.S. Senate vote that “Everything else – the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy – is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.”

Following Vance’s tie-breaking Senate vote to move the massive and destructive budget bill forward (including its more than $150 billion for immigration enforcement), Stephen Miller took a victory lap, noting that, the bill delivers on a “fifty-year hope and dream of the American people” and later telling Fox News that, “I’ve spent my entire life in the conservative movement since I was a kid in high school, working, dreaming of the day we could have a piece of legislation like what exists right now.”

Yet while the White House is crowing about their mass deportation plans, voices from around the country are highlighting the high costs and devastating consequences of the Trump administration deportation effort that’s already underway – and threatens to become a national nightmare if and when the House of Representatives moves the bill forward (see below for a round-up of coverage and key voices highlighting the costs on families, communities and our economy).

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

“J.D. Vance finally told the truth that slashing Medicaid didn’t matter, just deporting immigrants. Now Steven Miller reveals he’s been dreaming about turbocharged mass deportations since he was a teenager. His dreams are America’s nightmare. His mass deportation crusade already is imperiling our industries, spreading fear in American communities, and ripping American families apart and would become all the worse if the big ugly bill becomes law.

As the harmful legislative package careens forward, Members of Congress – especially those House Republicans who have spoken out against the immigration enforcement overreach and related harms – need to be prepared to let their votes do the talking on a defining vote for their home districts and our entire nation.”

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

Economic and Industry Costs of Mass Deportation

• Reuters, “Immigration raids leave crops unharvested, California farms at risk”
• The Fresno Bee, “Mass deportations could cost the San Joaquin Valley more than $19B, study finds”
• ABC News San Diego, “Harvest Interrupted: California farmer warns immigration enforcement threatens food supply, calls for reform”

Moral Costs and Human Toll of Mass Deportation

• NOTUS, “Trump’s Immigration Agenda Is Now Sweeping Up Military Families”
• Boston Globe, “Celebrated Roxbury restaurant may close after manager detained by ICE on Father’s Day”
• Denver Post (editorial), “Trump’s ICE targeting noncriminals, like the nursing student detained in Colorado, here’s how we know”
• The Guardian, “Two more Ice deaths put US on track for one of deadliest years in immigration detention”