One of the standard rationales for deporting undocumented migrants is that it creates more job opportunities for natives. If employers can't hire migrants, they will, presumably, hire more native-born citizens. In a recent article for the Peterson Institute of International Economics, my George Mason University colleague Michael Clemens—one of the world's leading immigration economists—explains why this intuitive assumption is false. In reality, mass deportations destroy more jobs than they create:
The presumptive presidential nominee of one of the two major political parties in the United States has embraced an election platform of mass deportation for immigrants who are in the country illegally. He has called for military troops to seize millions of people each year in "workplace raids and other sweeps in public places" and sending those caught into "giant detention camps." The "largest domestic deportation in American history" is proposed to begin on January 20, 2025.
As this candidate's top adviser on immigration has stated: "Mass deportation will be a labor-market disruption celebrated by American workers, who will now be offered higher wages with better benefits to fill these jobs."
But the best economic research on past deportations suggests the opposite. The immigrants being targeted for removal are the lifeblood of several parts of the US economy. Their deportation will instead prompt US business owners to cut back or start fewer new businesses, in some cases shifting their investments to less labor-intensive technologies and industries, while scaling back production to reflect the loss of consumers for their goods.
Prior episodes of mass deportations and exclusions have occurred at several moments in US history. Research has shown that, far from generating economic benefits, their net effect was to reduce employment and earnings for US workers—in the short run and long run.
The rest of the article outlines the extensive empirical evidence on this point.
The key theoretical point is that, while deporting immigrants often does create jobs for natives who directly compete with them, it destroys more elsewhere in the economy. For example, immigrant workers produce goods that are used by other enterprises, thereby creating jobs there. Immigrants are start new businesses at higher rates than natives. That, in turn, creates new jobs for both natives and immigrants. And, of course, immigrant workers produce goods and services that greatly improve the options available to native-born consumers (thereby indirectly making them wealthier). Clemens notes a number of other relevant indirect effects. Overall, immigration creates enormous economic benefits for natives, and restricting it greatly reduces their welfare and economic liberty (though migrants who get barred or deported suffer suffer even more).
One helpful way to think about the issue is to ask whether the twentieth-century expansion of job market opportunities for women and blacks helped white male workers, on net, or harmed them. Some white men likely were net losers. If you were a marginal white Major League Baseball player displaced by Jackie Robinson or other black baseball stars after MLB was integrated, it's possible that you would never find another job you liked as much as that one. But the vast majority of white men were almost certainly net beneficiaries by virtue of the fact that opening up opportunities for women and blacks greatly increased the overall wealth and productivity of society.
If, today, we barred women from the labor force, or restricted them to the kinds of jobs open to them a century ago, some male workers would benefit. For example, freed of competition from female academics, I might get a pay increase or become a professor at a higher-ranked school.
But, overall, men would be much poorer, by virtue of living in a far less productive and innovative society. And many men would lose jobs or suffer decreases in wages because their own productivity depends in part on goods and services produced by women. While I might have a more prestigious job, I would likely be poorer, overall, because I could no longer benefit from many of the goods, services, and innovations produced by female workers.
Similar consequences would occur if we were to reinstitute racial segregation, thereby severely restricting the job opportunities of black workers. While some whites would come out ahead, most would be net losers, as our economy becomes much less productive.
The key point to remember is that economy—including the labor market—is not a zero-sum game. Men and women, blacks and whites, and immigrants and natives—can all prosper together, if only the government would let them.
Michael Clemens' most famous article gives some sense of the enormous benefits of dropping immigration restrictions, which could well result in a doubling of world GDP. While migrants and their families would benefit disproportionately, there would also be an enormous benefit to native-born citizens.
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