Long known for his harsh rhetoric on illegal immigration, Trump repeatedly pledged mass deportation during his third bid for the presidency. “We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump said at a news conference on September 13, 2024. 

This is consistent with increasing rightwing voter concern over the issue — according to the Pew Research Center, among Trump supporters, 82 percent now say this issue is very important to their 2024 vote, a 21-point increase since 2020.

Questions abound as to whether or how a second Trump administration will carry out a mass deportation. After all, President Trump promised large deportations before; but data show he failed to match Obama’s numbers, largely due to resistance of state and local authorities. It’s also clear ICE, the federal agency responsible for deportations, does not have the capacity to handle a mass deportation on a scale Trump is promoting. Perhaps in response to such concerns, Trump has floated using the military or local police to conduct deportations, the legality of which would likely need to be resolved by the Supreme Court. 

President Trump won a comeback second term decisively, bolstered by voters who ranked the economy and immigration among their top concerns. Yet at the same time, the economic aspect of Trump’s proposed mass deportation remains under-examined. An economic analysis would involve not only direct costs and benefits to the government, but also impact on the labor market and the US economy more broadly.

Costs of Deportation 

According to ICE, removals in fiscal year 2016 cost nearly $10,900 per deportee. This figure includes expenses for detention, legal proceedings, and transportation back to the individual’s home country. A simple calculation shows that deporting 5 million immigrants would cost around 50 billion dollars, a small amount compared with the federal budget or the federal debt. 

In a post-election interview, the President Elect responded to questions about the price of mass deportation by claiming there was “no price tag” for his plan. “It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not — really, we have no choice.”

Impact on crime

Trump has frequently discussed the dangers posed by illegal immigrants, but data tell a different story. According to research by the Cato Institute using Texas data from 2018, the illegal immigrant criminal conviction rate was 782 per 100,000 illegal immigrants while the native-born American criminal conviction rate was 1,422 per 100,000. This means the illegal immigrant conviction rate was 45 percent below that of native-born Americans. Given the high personal cost of deportation, illegal immigrants are strongly incentivized to avoid the attention of law enforcement. By randomly deporting illegal immigrants, the US government would likely raise the rate of crime. 

Impact on taxes and government benefits

Contrary to popular belief, many illegal immigrants pay taxes and access government services. For example, some illegal immigrants pay into social programs like Social Security, although they are ineligible to receive benefits.

Although there have been numerous studies on the effect of immigration in general on the taxpayer, analysis focusing specifically on illegal immigrants is difficult to come by. According to one analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (PDF) on net fiscal impact, the surge in immigrant population (which is estimated to be 8.7 million from 2021 to 2026 and occurred largely as a result of Biden’s more lenient immigration policy) would reduce the federal deficit by 697 billion by 2034. The CBO estimate does not account for state and local net costs. 

On the other hand, as of 2022, approximately 4.4 million US-born children under the age of 18 were living with at least one illegal immigrant parent. According to the Heritage Foundation, there is a net fiscal deficit of $20,025 per single-parent family annually. If their parents are deported, the 4.4 million US children with only one or no parent would create a fiscal burden of at least $88 billion dollars per year.

Impact on the economy 

The modern economy is highly interconnected. As a result, the deportation of illegal immigrants who participate in the economy is expected to hurt US workers. According to one literature review published by the Carsey School of Public Policy (PDF), the deportation of 454,000 illegal immigrant workers between 2008 and 2015 led to a 0.5 percent decrease in employment among US-born workers and a 0.6 percent decline in their average hourly wages. Employment of US workers suffers as well. According to one study from the Journal of Labor Economics, when immigration enforcement removes half a million immigrant workers from the labor force — whether through deportations or due to deterrent effects — employment among US-born workers decreases by approximately 44,000. Illegal immigrants are concentrated in low-paying and unattractive jobs, such as farming, construction, housing-keeping, and cooking. In this sense, they complement native-born workers. Average Americans seem to appreciate this fact:  77 percent of adults believe that illegal immigrants primarily take on jobs that US citizens are not inclined to pursue. Total deportation of illegal immigrants would reduce the farm workforce by up to 45 percent, the construction workforce by 15 percent, and so on, leading to serious disruptions across the economy.

The GDP of the US would likewise be impacted. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates (PDF) that the US GDP would be 6 percent below long-run baseline if 7.5 million are removed. In 2013, the Bipartisan Policy Center projected a 5.7 percent reduction in if all illegal immigrants were removed. Both scenarios would noticeably undermine US competitiveness, in an era when the US is trying to confront China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea on the world stage. 

Leaving aside moral and legal reasons, the economic case against mass deportation is and has long been strong. There are many ways to fix America’s broken immigration system, but mass deportation is not one of them.