What Trump mass deportation plan would mean for immigrants and economy

President-elect Donald J. Trump won the White House based partly on his promises to rein in immigration, with targeted policies that range from sending criminals to their home countries to more sweeping ones like mass deportations. During the campaign, Trump pledged to end the Temporary Protected Status that allows workers from select countries to come to the U.S. to work. If some of the larger deportation efforts, like rolling back TPS,  come to fruition, experts say that there will be ripple effects felt in most sectors of the economy, in particular construction, housing and agriculture.

On Sunday night, Trump announced in a social media post that Tom Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will be his administration’s “border czar.” Homan had said at a conservative conference earlier this year “No one’s off the table. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.” He vowed to “run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”

Economists and labor specialists are most worried about the economic impact of policies that would deport workers already in the U.S., both documented and undocumented.

Staffing agencies were watching the election especially closely.

“The morning after the election, we sat down as a leadership team and explored what does this mean for talent availability?” said Jason Leverant, president and COO of the AtWork Group, a franchise-based national staffing agency. AtWork provides commercial staffing in immigrant-heavy verticals like warehouses, industrial, and agriculture in 39 states. 

Workers – “talent” in industry parlance – are already in short supply. While the worst of the labor crisis spurred by the post-Covid economic boom has passed, and labor supply and demand has come back into balance in recent months, the number of workers available to fill jobs across the U.S. economy remains a closely watched data point. Mass deportation would exacerbate this economic issue, say employers and economists.

“If the proposed immigration policies come into reality, there could be a significant impact,” Leverant said, pointing to estimates that a mass deportation program could leave as many as one million difficult-to-fill potential job openings.

How many undocumented immigrants work in the U.S.

There are various statistics offered up about the undocumented immigrant population in the United States. The left-leaning Center for American Progress puts the number at around 11.3 million, with 7 million of them working. The American Immigration Council, an advocacy group in favor of expanding immigration, citing data from an American Community Survey, also puts the number of undocumented people in the United States around 11 million. The non-partisan Pew Research Center puts the number at closer to 8 million people.

“There are millions, many millions who are undocumented who are in the trades; we don’t have the Americans to do the work,” said Chad Prinkey,…