The mass deportation plan would affect immigrant workers and the economy

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pledges to control immigration, which range from specific measures like deporting criminals to their home countries to more general ones like mass deportations, helped him win the presidency. Trump promised during the campaign to eliminate Temporary Protected Status, which permits workers from specific nations to enter the United States. S. to the workplace. Experts predict that most economic sectors, particularly construction, housing, and agriculture, will be impacted if some of the more significant deportation initiatives, such as the rollback of TPS, are implemented.

What worries labor experts and economists the most is how policies that would deport workers who are already in the United States would affect the economy. S. . documented as well as undocumented.

Particularly closely monitoring the election were staffing agencies.

According to Jason Leverant, president and COO of the franchise-based national staffing firm AtWork Group, “as a leadership team, we sat down the morning after the election and explored what does this mean for talent availability?”. In 39 states, AtWork offers commercial staffing in industries with a high immigrant population, such as warehouses, manufacturing, and agriculture.

There is already a shortage of workers, or “talent” as the industry calls them. Although the post-Covid economic boom-induced labor crisis has subsided and labor supply and demand have recently returned to equilibrium, there are still not enough workers to fill open positions nationwide. S. The economy continues to be a closely monitored statistic. Economists and employers agree that mass deportations would make this economic problem worse.

“There could be a significant impact if the proposed immigration policies come into reality,” Leverant stated, citing estimates that a mass deportation program could result in up to one million hard-to-fill potential job openings.

how many undocumented immigrants are employed in the United States. S. .

Numerous figures regarding the number of undocumented immigrants in the US are presented. The Center for American Progress, which leans left, estimates that there are approximately 11.3 million of them, 7 million of whom are employed. According to data from an American Community Survey, the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group for immigration expansion, estimates that there are approximately 11 million undocumented individuals in the US. Nearly 8 million people, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

According to Chad Prinkey, CEO of Well Built Construction Consulting, a company that works with construction companies, “there are millions, many millions who are undocumented who are in the trades; we don’t have the Americans to do the work.”. “These workers are essential, and we all want their identities, whereabouts, and tax payments to be recorded; we don’t want them to disappear”. “”.

How to fill jobs lost in a mass deportation is still up in the air, according to Leverant.

Leverant questioned, “Do we transfer talent from one area to another, only to lose it elsewhere?”. “We need to stay ahead of this because it’s pretty important.”. “.”.

AtWork sends 20,000 workers to various locations, and Leverant says he is not worried about losing any of them because document status is rigorously checked. However, if other companies lose workers, they will be depending even more on AtWork and other staffing agencies to find talent, which is already in short supply. Additionally, worker wages are determined by supply and demand, which will inevitably drive them up. And that will extend all the way to the grocery store or sporting goods store along the supply chain.

We are now playing the long game; shortages, slowdowns, and delays will be experienced on all fronts, he said.

A limited labor supply is likely to result in delayed construction projects or produce that does not reach the market because there are not enough workers to transport it to distribution.

Concerns about the workforce also include skilled labor and technology.

There are also worries that skilled workers may suffer if immigration laws are tightened.

This affects engineers and tech workers in addition to low-skilled labor. We don’t have enough skilled talent there either to fill the jobs,” Leverant stated. He added that while he does not foresee the deportation of scientists and doctors, limitations on H-1B visas and a more hostile environment may discourage talent from entering.

If history is any indication, Janeesa Hollingshead, head of expansion at Uber Works, the ride-sharing company’s on-demand staffing division, concurs that technology will be affected.

“The tech industry depends largely on immigrants to fill highly technical, critical roles,” Hollingshead said, citing Uber’s warning to all tech workers on H-1B visas during Trump’s first term that they might not be allowed to return if they took vacations in their home countries.

During the initial Trump administration, the U.S. government’s. S. . In comparison to the previous four years, Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected a higher proportion of H-1B petitions; however, many of these denials were reversed, resulting in a lower percentage of denials by fiscal 2020—13 percent as opposed to 24 percent in 2018. The denial rates were at their lowest ever in fiscal years 2021 and 2022.

According to Hollingshead, American tech companies will have to look for tech talent from underutilized, already-existing talent pools.

“U. S. Businesses will have to figure out how to do this or risk an even more severe labor shortage, according to Hollingshead.

Trump declared at his rally in New York’s Madison sq\. Garden just before the election: “I will begin the most extensive deportation program in American history on Day 1 in order to remove the criminals.”. “.”.

His policy of mass deportations is not rhetoric, in my opinion. As the chair of the immigration practice group at the law firm U, David Leopold said, “We have to assume he means what he says.”. B. . Greensfelder.

The mass deportations may be challenging to carry out in reality, notwithstanding the potential impact on the labor market.

Leopold stated, “It is very expensive to remove 11 million people,” and he predicted that Trump would round up immigrants using both local law enforcement and federal agencies, including ICE.

In a phone interview with Kristen Welker of NBC News shortly after the election results, Trump cited the more somber rhetoric on migrants that worked well during the campaign while claiming that he has nothing against people entering the country and that more people will be needed if his administration’s policy of requiring companies to establish operations in the U.S. S. . succeeds. Trump stated, “We want people to come in.”. There are going to be a lot of companies entering our nation. Their goal is to enter our nation. dots. Companies, factories, plants, and auto factories are coming to our nation because we want them to. Consequently, we require individuals, but we prefer those who are not incarcerated for killing seven people. “.”.

The American Immigration Council estimates that the cost of a longer-term mass deportation operation that targets one million people annually, which it claims reflects “more conservative proposals” made by proponents of mass deportation, would average out to $88 billion annually, for a total cost of $967.9 billion over more than ten years.

During his interview with NBC News, Trump brushed off worries about the expense. “A price tag is not the issue,” he stated. “There is nothing we can do. When drug lords have destroyed nations and people have killed and murdered, they will return to those nations because they want to leave this place. The dot. There isn’t a cost,” Trump declared.

Consumers may experience price increases, supply issues, and limited access to goods and services, according to Leopold, depending on how serious the plan is.

harm from housing and construction.

The American Immigration Council’s research director, Nan Wu, shares other people’s worries that if deportations continue to rise under Trump, consumers will face chaos.

Deportations in large numbers would worsen current U.S. A. labor shortages, particularly in sectors that mainly depend on undocumented immigrant workers,” Wu stated, referencing AIC’s research that indicates one in eight workers would be lost in the construction sector, which employs 14% of undocumented workers in the US.

“Removing so many workers in such a short amount of time would increase construction costs and cause delays in the construction of new homes, making housing even less affordable in many parts of the country,” Wu stated.

The same, she claims, holds true for the agricultural sector, which would also lose one in eight employees.

When examining particular professions, roughly 25% of farm laborers, agricultural graders, and sorters are undocumented workers. It would harm domestic food production and drive up food prices if we lost the agricultural workers who grow, pick, and pack our food, Wu said.

In 2018, the most recent year for which USDA data are available, 41 percent of farm workers were undocumented, with California having the highest percentage.

AIC calculates that the U.S. S. The GDP would decrease by $11 trillion to $17 trillion.

American Compass, a conservative think tank, supports a “skills-based immigration policy” that calls for “serious immigration enforcement that prevents people from working illegally.”. According to a policy brief, “such enforcement will need to deal prospectively with the future flow of immigrants as well as grapple with the millions of illegal workers already here.”.

Its policy priorities include requiring all employers to use the E-Verify system and imposing harsh criminal penalties for repeated or deliberate violations; granting short-term work permits to illegal immigrants who have been in the country for a considerable amount of time, but establishing a deadline for their departure based on the length of time they have been there; and providing for those who have lived in the U.S. A. for the longest, the availability of permanent legal status following the payment of a sizable fine.

According to Prinkey, a mass deportation program would have a profound effect. The fact that we are unsure of the number of undocumented workers is one of their inherent issues. It’s not that simple. I’d bet that in some areas, at least half of on-site labor goes unreported,” he said.

“There is a much higher level of oversight if you are building a nuclear facility or colleges and universities, so you might be working with very few undocumented workers,” Prinkey stated. The sectors in question will shrug and move on. He anticipated union workers would be no different.

Prinkey, however, believes that single-family and multi-family housing construction—two areas of the housing market that may be “paralyzed”—will be significantly impacted. “”.

“There will be amazing delays; because there are so few bodies, an 18-month project could take five years to finish,” Prinkey stated. He continued, “It would shut down every project in Austin, but it will be less devastating in Boston.”.

Despite the dire predictions, Prinkey does not believe that mass deportations will occur. Donald Trump is aware of the situation because he is a developer. There cannot be a mass deportation without having a disastrous effect on the economy,” he stated.