During his much-publicized Aug. 12 live conversation on X with Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, former President Donald Trump doubled down on one of his key policy positions in his run to retake the White House.
"We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of this country and we have no choice," Trump said.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris on Aug. 22 formally accepted the nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate. During her acceptance speech, she reiterated that, if elected, she will push to enact the immigration bill authored by Oklahoma Republican James Lankford, Arizona Independent Kyrsten Sinema and Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy. That bill, a tri-partisan effort representing some of the most extensive border reforms in decades, failed in a 49-50 Senate procedural vote in February.
Trump, who agitated aggressively against the Lankford bill, has made immigration policy a defining issue for his campaign. In April, he said that, if elected, he would aim to deport between 15 and 20 million people he estimates are illegally in the U.S. He said he would deploy the National Guard to help accomplish his plan. In 2016, Trump's main campaign message also focused on immigration, pledging mass deportations and to build a wall along the southern border.
Immigration Vs. The Economy
In addition, Trump claims that if elected he will supercharge the economy. A number of high-profile names in the investing and business community, including Musk and Bill Ackman, appear to back Trump's views and have already endorsed the former president.
However, a number of leading experts believe mass deportations could actually curb economic growth. They point to the agriculture, homebuilding and services sectors as at the greatest risk. Such a sudden depletion of the labor pool could, in turn, send shock waves through the greater economy.
The Trump campaign declined multiple requests for comment on the former president's immigration policy and how it might affect the economy. Multiple attempts were also made to contact Senators Sinema and Lankford, with no reply. As of time of publication, the Harris campaign provides no media contact information.
Trump's Immigration Policy Gambit
The former president's basic concept on immigration appears to draw broad support. An Axios poll of 6,251 U.S. adults conducted in April showed that 51% of Americans — including 42% of all Democrats — said they would support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. The demographic breakdown of the survey was 56% of White respondents supporting the policy, 45% of Latinos and 40% of Black Americans.
Trump's deportation plans have varied from a goal of 1 million deportations per year to deporting the entire population of unauthorized U.S. immigrants. Pew Research puts that number at around 11 million persons.
Meanwhile, supporters and surrogates for the former president have raised the prospect of reinstating Title 42. That's the public health statute which, using the coronavirus pandemic as pretext, gave the president the power to bypass the established immigration law in order to rapidly expel migrants.
Joe Biden's administration kept the statute intact through May, 2023.
Trump's Immigration Policy Vs. Biden and Harris
During Biden's first two years in office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported under 200,000 people total — fewer than any single year during Trump's term. However, The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, reports that 1.1 million deportations have taken place since the beginning of fiscal year 2021 through February 2024. During Trump's four years in office, 1.5 million deportations were carried out, according to the MPI.
Deportation is a very specific term, the result of a court process. Deportations are a subset of a larger set of actions called expulsions. MPI reports 3 million expulsions of migrants crossing the border occurred under the pandemic-era Title 42 order between March 2020 and May 2023. Combined, the MPI's recent report says the Biden administration's total of "nearly 4.4 million repatriations" is already the most by a president since the 5 million racked up during George W. Bush's second term.
Border Traffic Increases. Changes.
But as a percentage of total border crossings, Biden's repatriation numbers have lagged those of the Trump administration.
Between fiscal year 2021 and so far through fiscal year 2024, there have been more than 10 million "migrant encounters" nationwide, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Meanwhile, total encounters between fiscal year 2017 and fiscal year 2020 totaled slightly more than 3 million.
And while monthly numbers have declined sharply so far this year, they still remain well above all but the highest number of encounters seen during the Trump years. In addition, in Congress, a strong contingent contend that a new element of immigrant has increased the border threat.
"Starting last year, we saw the shift that happened on who was crossing the border," said Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), in an interview with the New York Times. "It was a very different group that was coming across, and it was criminal organizations that were becoming travel agents to be able to move people."
As evidence, he points to eight persons who crossed at the southwest border and were given dates for court cases regarding asylum requests. Later federal law enforcement arrested the group members. CBS news cited unnamed sources claiming the individuals had ties to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.
Harris Policy
Meanwhile, if Harris wins the White House, she has made clear she would pursue the immigration reform bill that failed the Senate vote in February. Otherwise, she has so far said little about what her administration's immigration policy might look like.
Adoption of the immigration reform package authored by Lankford and Sinema would mean a sharp turn vs. the Biden-era policies.
The package provides no amnesty for undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. It would end the 10-year wait for an asylum hearing, provide funding to complete and extend a border wall, and for more Border Patrol agents. More asylum officers would be hired to speed the pace of hearings and deportations.
The bill would also create a new "Title 42-like" authority to shut down and deport everyone at times when border traffic surges. In addition, it includes funding to increase technology at the border, and to add more detention beds, more agents, and more deportation flights.
Harris And The California Effect
Passing the immigration reform legislation would require support from both the Senate and the House. Without that support, or before the legislation passes, experts make educated guesses as to what sort of immigration stance Harris might adopt.
Many believe as president she would continue Biden's immigration policy, which consists primarily of removing people who arrive illegally at the border with little immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior.
"Because she is from California, because she is the daughter of immigrants herself, she would likely have a more humane perspective with regard to immigration policy," Kent Wong, director for the UCLA Labor Center, said in an interview with IBD.
In her acceptance speech, Harris said, "We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border."
Republicans have criticized Harris as Biden's failed "border czar." To be sure, Biden has set the border policy during his administration. Early in the administration, Harris was appointed to study and devise means of dealing with the origins of immigrants heading toward the U.S., largely from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
The Washington Post reports that migration from those three Central American countries has fallen 35% during the Biden administration vs. 2019 numbers under Trump.
Jobs Numbers And The Economy
Tara Watson, an economist for the Brookings Institute, told IBD that immigrants just arriving to the U.S. historically tend to work in agriculture, restaurants, the service sector, and construction. A November report from the House Committee on Agriculture noted that of 1.2 million full-time workers in agriculture, 70% were foreign-born and 50% were working in undocumented status.
Given these kinds of numbers, Trump's deportation proposal could cause such a contraction in the workforce, Watson said, that it could have a dramatic negative impact — not only on those specific industries — but on the entire U.S. economy.
Watson contends that U.S. jobs growth numbers over the past couple of years were fueled largely by strong immigration. Rapidly extracting 1 million people from the workforce would have an "extremely disruptive" impact across multiple sectors of the economy, she said.
"Given the demographic changes that are underway with the aging of the U.S. population and declining fertility, immigration is really essential to our continued economic growth," Watson said.
The Congressional Budget Office forecasts the U.S. labor force in 2033 is projected to grow by 5.2 million people, "mostly because of higher net immigration."
Based on this forecast, the U.S. gross domestic product is projected to increase about $7 trillion with revenues jumping more than $1 trillion, according to the CBO report.
Construction Could Take A Hit
Homebuilders and construction are another obvious area likely to be affected by potential deportations. The supply of workers in construction trades has been very tight since the 2007-08 housing crisis. That limits the pace of homebuilding, and it drives up the cost of homes and remodeling projects.
Nationally, foreign-born workers make up about 30% of the overall construction workforce, according to the National Association of Home Builders. California and Texas take the lead among states with close to 40% of their construction labor force born abroad, the NAHB reports. In Florida, New Jersey and New York, the numbers ran about 36% to 37%.
A May report from the University of Michigan's Civil & Environmental Engineering school found that undocumented individuals comprise 20% of the construction workforce in the U.S.
The number of new immigrant workers entering the construction industry dropped by a third in 2017 — Donald Trump's first year in office. That was the first such decline in six years. Meanwhile, more than 2 million fewer immigrants than expected entered the labor force from March 2020 to late 2021, according to estimates from University of California, Davis, researchers.
"The surprising drop of 2017 in the number of new immigrants in construction most likely reflects a change in the US immigration policy that took place during the first year under the new administration," the NAHB wrote in a memo.
Trump's Mass Deportation And Project 2025
Donald Trump has so far worked to put distance between his campaign and Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's outline of initiatives for a next Trump presidency. Despite Trump's denials, Heritage President Kevin Roberts told radio station KALW in February the project was an effort to "institutionalize Trumpism, a new version of conservatism."
Among the document's many specifics on immigration, it details a gradual wind-down of the H-2A and H-2B visas used to supply seasonal workforces to industries including agriculture and hospitality.
The plan provides a 10- to 20-year ramp-down of dependence on workforces sourced largely from Mexico, Central and South America, as well as Eastern Europe. But most of the immigration elements of the plan are more immediate, and would liquidate certain portions of the workforce.
Echoes Of Covid Labor Crash
David Bier, immigration studies director at the Cato Institute, says that a worst-case scenario from Trump's mass deportation proposal could echo what occurred during the summer months in 2021 amid coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
"That's the best example," Bier said. "You're going to see so many people on the sidelines with worker shortages everywhere."
Bier added that the only difference is that in 2021, the federal government was "pumping" money into the economy. That kept consumer demand high despite the worker shortage.
In addition, Bier points out that those undocumented individuals are also consumers who tend to spend 100% of their paychecks.
Large-scale deportations would mean "pulling a lot of consumers out of the market — you're not going to have the workers, and you're not going to have the consumers, so that's going be a really painful hit for a lot of sectors," Bier said.
The result "would be an immediate effect where you're going to see a big contraction in the economy," he said. "There's going to be less purchases happening, but also less production, which means you're going to see, on net, more inflation."
One Beneficiary of Deportations: Automation
One counterpoint to the downside scenarios comes from analysts at research firm Baird. The firm in June told investors that a second Trump presidency would benefit several sectors, including agriculture and the hospitality industry.
The firm wrote in July that labor is likely to get tighter and more expensive under a Trump administration. And because the dynamic is structural, rather than cyclical, it will drive an increase in automation.
For that reason, Baird sees Deere, CNH Industrial and Agco among the names benefiting from a Trump presidency. Equipment makers John Bean Technologies and Middleby are also on the list.
Changes In The Tech Sector
Experts and observers expect Trump's prospective immigration policy to primarily hit the broader economy, in sectors that tend to require less education. But stricter immigration policies could also hit the tech sector and technology stocks.
Technology companies could see restrictions on employing foreign-born scientists and engineers under H-1B status. The H-1B work visa allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers with specialized skills for specific periods of time.
After Trump took office in 2017, the denial rate for H-1B petitions rose in fiscal year 2018 and 2019.
The 2025 project outlines plans to limit some of the income categories for which H-1B visa holders would be eligible. But the former president has signaled interest in attracting educated, or highly skilled workers to the U.S.
Trump floated a proposal in an All-In podcast hosted by Silicon Valley tech investors in June to offer green cards to students graduating from U.S. colleges, allowing them to stay in the country.
A February Niskanen Center report analyzing Project 2025 said that two-thirds of U.S. graduate students in artificial intelligence-related programs are foreign-born, as are approximately 80% in electrical engineering, petroleum engineering, and computer science.
"You graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country," Trump said, "and that includes junior colleges too."
Will Trump's Immigration Policy Happen?
Immigration is a central tenet of the Trump campaign battle plan. But whether mass deportations might actually occur remains to be seen.
Experts point out myriad legal and constitutional hurdles to such policies. They also point to operational challenges U.S. immigration agencies would face in attempting to carry out this type of operation.
"The reality is that this would have a devastating impact on the economy," UCLA Labor Center's Wong said. "For all practical purposes, it's not feasible, nor is it in the interest of the U.S. economy."
There seems to be little doubt, however, that Trump would indeed enforce much stricter immigration policies than those of the Biden administration. Policy under a Harris White House, if the Lankford immigration bill were enacted, would seem to carve a middle road.
If Trump wins, Bier at the Cato Institute sees "a real risk" of an extreme scenario. "I think the prospect is very real that we could see millions of deportations take place under a second Trump administration term in office."
Meanwhile, Brookings Institute economist Watson expects "very visible movements towards large-scale deportation," although probably not reaching into the millions.
"Even if it's not as big as you might think based on the rhetoric, it could still be disruptive," she said. "And it may also deter people either from coming to the U.S. or discourage people from staying in the U.S. if they have another option."
Please follow Kit Norton on X @KitNorton for more coverage.
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