The potential economic impact of Trump’s mass deportation promise

Immigration is a key issue of this campaign. Vice President Harris says if elected, she will pass a bipartisan bill strengthening border security. Former President Trump promises a much larger crackdown including mass deportations. Paul Solman examines the potential economic impact of deportations and Trump’s claims that immigrants take jobs and lower wages for other Americans.
Amna Nawaz:
Immigration remains another key issue in this campaign. Vice President Harris says, if elected, she will pass a bipartisan bill strengthening border security.
Former President Trump promises a much larger crackdown, including mass deportations. One of the key claims from Trump and others, that immigrants committed disproportionate number of crimes, has been disputed and contradicted by data. But there’s been an economic argument made by the former president as well, that immigrants take jobs and lower wages for other Americans.
Our economic correspondent, Paul Solman, gave that a closer look.
Donald Trump, Former President of the United States (R) and Current U.S. Presidential Candidate: An invasion of criminal migrants.
Paul Solman:
For former President Donald Trump, immigration has long been an obsession.
Donald Trump:
We are a dumping ground. We are like a garbage can for the world.
Paul Solman:
But Vice President Harris too promises to crack down on illegal crossings.
Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: We will pursue more severe terminal charges against repeat violators.
Paul Solman:
Fifty-five percent of Americans say they favor reduced immigration amidst a record number of illegal crossings late last year, straining resources in several cities, including here in New York, though crossings have since plunged.
These are immigrants in the South Bronx learning construction safety basis. Almost all have asked for asylum and are in legal limbo until their cases are resolved.
How many of you think you will be working in two months?
What kind of work? Well, Karmeen Tavares came here years ago from the Dominican Republic. He says he’s done every job he could find.
Karmeen Tavares, Dominican Migrant:
Construction, electrician, carpenter, plumber, and locksmith.
Paul Solman:
Wilbur Alva has been here just one month.
Wilbur Alva, Peruvian Migrant (through interpreter):
I go to Home Depot. A lot of migrants go to look for construction jobs there.
Paul Solman:
Alfonso Melendez endured the nightmare trek from Venezuela through the Darien Gap jungle to get to America with his two young sons and wife, Bianney.
Bianney Pacheco, Venezuela Migrant (through interpreter):
We were robbed just as we were exiting the jungle. The masked men came out and they stopped everybody crossing. So it was in a large group and they stole from everyone. And those who didn’t have anything to give, at times there were young women, pretty women there. And these men just took it upon themselves to rape them.
Paul Solman:
Bianney and her husband say they’re forever scarred.
Knowing what now, would you do it again?
Alfonso Melendez, Venezuela Migrant (through interpreter):
No. It’s too much psychologically. Lots of bodies riddled the path.
Paul Solman:
Donald Trump also stresses a more seemingly plausible dark side of immigration, the immigrant’s economic impact.
Donald Trump:
It’s not just a crime. Your jobs are being taken away too.
Paul Solman:
Especially low-wage jobs, says Steven Camarota, who has long advocated for fewer immigrants.
Steven Camarota, Center for Immigration Studies: The vast majority of people who do all the low-wage work in the United States are U.S.-born.
Paul Solman:
So key question, are immigrants displacing American workers? Well, almost any employer will tell you how hard it is to find reliable workers these days.
Juan Pablo Morales, Catholic Charities:
Most of the people that are coming are in working age. They’re going to do the jobs that I don’t want to do, you don’t want to do, nobody else wants to do and we’re not doing.
Paul Solman:
When Juan Pablo Morales, the program coordinator here, came from Guatemala 14 years ago, he too started at the bottom.
Juan Pablo Morales:
I was putting floors. I was teaching English, cutting hair, killing rats.
Paul Solman:
Killing rats?
(Laughter)
Juan Pablo Morales:
Absolutely.
Paul Solman:
How do you kill rats?
Juan Pablo Morales:
I have some friends that have Jack terriers, and we would take them out at night and hunt rats in vacant lots of New York City. And would we get paid just to walk around and do that.
Paul Solman:
Karmeen Tavares says immigrants have to take whatever job they can get.
Karmeen Tavares (through interpreter):
They have to take any opportunity available, because they have to provide for themselves and for the people they’re with, and they don’t have access to health care. They don’t have any assistance.
Paul Solman:
Twenty-hour miles west, Janelle Baker runs a ranch in rural Eastern Nevada. Her father has a dairy farm nearby.
What’s your reaction when you hear that immigrants are taking jobs from Americans?
Janelle Baker (Baker Ranches):
I think it’s dumb.
Paul Solman:
Dumb? Yes.
Janelle Baker:
It’s uninformed. They’re not taking your job. You don’t want it. You don’t want to do it. If you want to, you would be applying when we advertise. My dad wouldn’t be looking for milkers all the time. Nearly everyone we know in agriculture is looking for someone.
Paul Solman:
Case in point, for years, Baker has posted an irrigation job.
Janelle Baker:
We had a couple of people that said: “My son would like a job.” I never heard from them. Another time, we had someone call, say they were interested and they never showed up. This year, we had someone looked at the requirements of the job and decided they didn’t want to do it. But he was the only person to actually show up and talk to my husband about the job.
Paul Solman:
OK, but what about the recent wave of immigrants? Can the economy really absorb all of them?
Juan Pablo Morales:
New York City is a vacuum of jobs, especially in the construction industry. There is a job for anybody that wants to work, especially if you’re willing to do anything.
Paul Solman:
Jobs that native-born Americans don’t or won’t do?
Steven Camarota:
It would be wrong to say there are jobs that Americans simply don’t do. If two-thirds of construction laborers, based on the American Community Survey, are U.S.-born, you can’t say no American does that job or is interested.
Paul Solman:
And here’s a crucial point, says Steven Camarota. Immigrants depress wages below what many Americans can bear.
Steven Camarota:
If you increase the supply of anything, in this case labor or workers, you tend to lower its price. If a job is very heavily immigrant, then that is likely an area where immigration has significantly pushed down wages.
And some of those jobs are really unpleasant, like construction labor. So you would want wages to be relatively high there, and one of the things immigration does is tends to hold down wages, making the occupation less attractive.
Paul Solman:
But Karmeen Tavares says there are construction jobs American workers won’t do even for high pay.
Karmeen Tavares:
I see the people you pay $50 something and work in the construction, and sometimes don’t work. I see that with my eyes.
Paul Solman:
Juan Pablo Morales, long since an American citizen, sympathizes.
Juan Pablo Morales:
There’s a lot of jobs that I had to do. If I’m not in a spot in my life again where I have to, I won’t. I won’t.
Paul Solman:
Business school Professor Zeke Hernandez.
Zeke Hernandez, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania: We have very clear evidence that native-born young men and women will simply not do those jobs. They will not take them, even during times of very high unemployment.
Paul Solman:
But, argues Camarota, if fewer immigrants mean higher wages then maybe Americans will take the jobs, especially less educated men.
Steven Camarota:
The share of men not in the labor force, that is neither working nor looking for work, is about triple what it was in 1960. And it’s nearly double what it was even 20, 25 years ago. As long as we have a supply of eager immigrants, we are never going to address this problem.
Paul Solman:
And think of all the available jobs were Donald Trump to deliver on his campaign vow.
Donald Trump:
We’re going to get these people out. We’re going to deport them so rapidly.
Paul Solman:
That would cost all of us, says economist Giovanni Peri.
Giovanni Peri, University of California, Davis: The income that this undocumented generating in the U.S. is about 3.5 percent of the U.S. GDP, so on the order of $1 trillion per year.
Plus, you will have all the cost of running this operation that will also be huge. From a pure economic point of view, massive cost. Some sectors will have huge disruption.
Paul Solman:
What would happen to American agriculture, let’s say?
Janelle Baker:
So I think you would tank it in our area. If you were to pull out all of the immigrants, documented and undocumented, it would devastate our area.
Juan Pablo Morales:
Here in New York, construction never stops. Who’s doing that construction?
Tim Driscoll runs the bricklayers union.
Timothy Driscoll, President, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers: I don’t believe the industry could actually survive that kind of mass loss of workers.
Paul Solman:
And besides, says Driscoll:
Timothy Driscoll:
The only way there was a reduction in unauthorized workers in this country was when the pandemic hit and employment opportunities ceased to exist and the reason that a lot of folks were attracted here disappeared.
We had the four-year experiment of self-deportation. It failed.
Paul Solman:
Just so, says Professor Hernandez.
Zeke Hernandez:
There’s a study that came out recently showing that the biggest predictor of illegal border crossings is unfilled job openings in the United States. We need these people.
Paul Solman:
And, at the moment, at least, we certainly seem to.
For the “PBS News Hour,” Paul Solman in the Bronx.