Trump’s mass deportations are not just cruel, but will badly hurt Miami’s economy

Andres Oppenheimer

What irony! Miami’s Venezuelan, Cuban and Nicaraguan exile communities, who have been among President Trump’s most fervent supporters, are now among the biggest victims of his mass deportations.

Trump has issued a new order under which 532,000 Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Haitian immigrants nationwide will lose their temporary humanitarian parole residency status for people fleeing from dire humanitarian crises. Many of them live in Miami and other Florida cities.

In addition, hundreds of thousands more Venezuelan immigrants face deportation orders because of Trump’s decision not to extend their Temporary Protection Status, or TPS.

During the presidential campaign, Trump had stressed that he would focus on deporting mainly dangerous criminals, such as members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang. But, once in office, he has extended his deportation plans to temporary legal residents who did not have criminal records.

“Since his first day in office, on Jan. 20, Trump has had the Venezuelan community in a state of constant terror,” Helene Villalonga, president of Amavex, a Miami-based group that provides legal support to Venezuelan immigrants, told me.

She added that the Venezuelan community feels “stigmatized” by the administration’s frequent statements equating Venezuelan immigrants with Tren de Aragua criminals. According to December estimates by the Department of Homeland Security, there are only 600 suspected Tren de Aragua members in the United States, of which 100 may have committed violent crimes.

Before we get into why Trump is so obsessed with expelling immigrants, let’s look at the likely economic impact of his mass deportations. You don’t need a doctorate in economics to conclude that mass deportations will badly hurt the economy.

Many undocumented immigrants and TPS or humanitarian parole-holders work in jobs that keep society running: construction, agriculture and restaurants, for example. If they are expelled, labor shortages will drive up prices of almost everything and fuel inflation.

According to previously unpublished estimates by the Immigration Research Initiative, a New York-based think tank, the mass deportation of all undocumented and temporary immigrants would hurt Florida, along with New York, California and Texas, more than most other states.

The IRI estimated, after I asked about Florida impact, that about 36% of all Florida construction workers, or more than 150,000, are undocumented or have TPS or humanitarian parole residency status. IRI director David Dyssegaard Kallick said more than 180,000 work in the service industry as house cleaners, healthcare aides, manicurists and gardeners. Another estimated 85,000 work in factories, transportation and delivery of goods.

“If all of the people in Florida who are undocumented or have provisional work permits are deported, the economy will contract and over 80,000 other workers are likely to lose their jobs,” Dyssegaard Kallick told me. He added, “If the people who wash dishes in restaurants are deported, the business will shrink, and everybody will get affected, even managers.”

As for the argument that authorized permanent residents or U.S.-born workers could replace them, that’s wishful thinking. With a near record low 4.4% unemployment rate, employers are already having a hard time finding workers, and few U.S.-born Americans are willing to do these jobs.

Which brings us back to the question of why Trump is so obsessed with deporting millions of people. Some Trump critics believe it’s because he may be a racist, citing his campaign statement that immigrants “are poisoning the blood of our country.”

But I think that Trump’s deportation obsession is more likely a political strategy to please xenophobes within his base, while diverting public attention from his increasingly unpopular economic policies. Separate recent CNN and Fox News polls showed that 56% of Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy, while most still approved of his immigration actions.

And Trump does not pay a high political price for deporting Venezuelans, because most Venezuelan immigrants are recent arrivals who don’t vote.

In the end, Trump’s own supporters may face labor shortages and rising prices. His immigration demagoguery risks not only betraying loyal exile communities but also undermining America’s economic prosperity — a self-inflicted wound that may prove costly for all.