Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy | Hacker News Reader

Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy

americanimmigrationcouncil.org

21 pointsspeckx42 comments

If you don’t experience consequences for poor governance decisions, you don’t learn.

The problem is that the people who experience the worst consequences are often those who had the least power over the decision to begin with.

It is unfortunate democracy and an unsophisticated electorate has led us here. All you can do now is attempt to protect the vulnerable while allowing the culpable to experience what they've voted for.

People with incomes under 50k/year overwhelmingly voted for the winner in the recent election, perhaps they’ll reconsider when chicken is $15/lb and strawberries are $10/pint, roof replacement costs doubling, etc. They likely do not understand the impact that illegal immigrant labor has on food affordability, but they might find that out now. Hopefully congress will increase SNAP benefits if food prices start spiraling upwards.

People making 30k to 100k on average voted for the winner. People making less than 30k or more than 100k did not.

Thanks for the clarification

Would it be a net win for them, or a net loss? Prices will go up, but shouldn't wages go up as well (because there are fewer people to work, and we still want the work to get done, so supply and demand dictates a higher price for work)?

There is robust evidence Americans are not going to do the jobs migrants are doing, and businesses will not be willing to pay a living wage for those remaining authorized to work in the US. Prices will go up. Supply and demand. Farm fields, dairy farms, construction, slaughterhouses, seasonal work, hospitality, etc [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7].

So, assume you're going to deport the people who do these jobs (~8M unauthorized people are in the US labor force, total unauthorized is ~11M-15M). Also consider that Boomer retirement is ramping, and is roughly 11,200 per day or 4.1M per year [8]. Unemployment is still historically low. Who is going to do this work?

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020... ("Unauthorized immigrants account for nearly a tenth of all US workers in food industries")

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/06/10/a-majorit... ("A majority of Americans say immigrants mostly fill jobs U.S. citizens do not want")

[3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/how-migrant-workers-hav... ("How migrant workers have contributed to strong U.S. job growth")

[4] https://www.npr.org/2024/04/26/1242236604/florida-economy-im... ("A year later, Florida businesses say the state's immigration law dealt a huge blow")

[5] https://civicmedia.us/news/2024/11/14/wisconsin-farmer-calls... (“The election outcome is an unmitigated disaster for the state’s agriculture-related businesses,” Breitenmoser explains. “Trump criticized immigration policies that overall target essential farm workers, many of whom come from outside the U.S. Our dairy and meat industries rely heavily on these workers and sending them home or restricting immigration threatens to collapse Wisconsin’s agricultural economy.”)

[6] https://eyeonhousing.org/2024/03/states-and-construction-tra... ("States and Construction Trades Most Reliant on Immigrant Workers, 2022")

[7] https://limos.engin.umich.edu/deitabase/2024/05/28/undocumen... ("The perils of Undocumented Construction Workers in the United States")

[8] https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/08/baby-boomers-hit-peak-65-in-... ("As baby boomers hit ‘peak 65’ this year, what the retirement age should be is up for debate")

In theory those jobs could be made more attractive to workers: safer, better paying less arduous, better benefits. Any job can be made more appealing with the right motivation.

Of course, you only have to look at the coalition that supports the Republican party to know that's not going to happen. Instead the most likely outcome is that the increased threat of deportation will be used to keep undocumented workers in line and make them accept greater on-the-job hazards, wage theft, and abuse from management. It's already common in some of the worst industries (e.g. poultry processing) to call ICE when workers try to organize a union.

My wild speculation is immigrants will likely migrate to states that have made public commitments to protect them, to the detriment of states losing them (exacerbating their labor shortages).

Even if it is a net win, voters won't perceive it as one, judging by the historical response to inflation against incumbent governments worldwide and through the decades.

I can guarantee one thing and that is that they will not learn.

These kinds of people do not learn from their mistakes. They find scape goats to blame and will try the same thing the over and over again like the fools they are.

I don't think that's true:

"Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted." -- Winston Churchill

I think that once the chips are down and their are real consequences for failure, Americans learn pretty quickly. There just have to be real consequences for failure, personally experienced.

The game of fascism is you always blame some group for all your problems, typically a minority. If the particular target of a fascist ideology is removed and issues still persist, you just pivot to another minority.

The presidential government system has the flaw of the citizenry ascribing blame or credit to the president for effects that they had no hand in. It impedes learning from mistakes, compared with the parliamentary system where the accountability is somewhat more direct.

Are you saying Trump didn’t set draconian sanctions on Cuba and Venezuela causing mass migration and essentially cooking elections?

While I understand the logic behind deportations, and may or may not appreciate the policy itself, I do not understand the logic behind maintaining the status quo. What is the policy and vision of those who oppose any deportation of illegal immigrants (we use "undocumented" now, which gives the impression that they left their papers in the washing machine, not that they can't have them because they shouldn't be in the U.S.)?

Full disclosure: I am an immigrant myself, and I have spent money and time following a cumbersome process that I have complied with anyway. Some, and surprisingly most of them are very left-wing, say that without illegal immigrants everything would cost a lot more, which seems to me to be an invitation to exploitation that is somewhere between funny and absurd. Some suggest legalizing everyone, thinking that people like me who follow laws and procedures are nothing but fools, and that making millions of people "legal" would have no impact on government and public finances. Moreover, making everyone "legal" would give the unpleasant impression that domestic policy is dictated by foreign people and countries, that laws are not really relevant, and that everyone is welcome and will receive goods and services.

The same reasoning applies to Europe, whose domestic policies are dictated by North African and Sub-Saharan countries. And reciprocity, what is this strange word? Moroccans apply for Spanish or Italian citizenship, "simple procedures", they ask. But try to get Moroccan citizenship as a foreigner. It is impossible.

The logic is very easy: Certain groups objectives are not "Everyone lives well" or even "I live well", they are "I live well in comparison to those I see around me". They do not say it aloud and they are not very bright, but by their actions and what compromises they are willing and unwilling to accept you can eke out their true utility function. They thrive in chaos because they receive relative pleasure from seeing others fall, and even more from importing the miserable and keeping them miserable.

To be perfectly honest, everyone does this. Schadenfreude is an inherently human trait. The relative weight is different by person, though.

President Lyndon B. Johnson once said

> If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

In the United States, illegal immigration is largely a humanitarian crisis. A crisis in some ways caused by the United States and their involvement in Latin America the past century.

Opposition to the incoming administration’s plan for mass deportation does not have to do anything with wanting a cheap labor pool to exploit or a lack of desire to enforce the law but potentially to avoid exasperating the humanitarian crisis. Additionally there is the huge economic costs and impacts discouraging even legal immigrants from entering the country to work as migrant farm labor and so on.

This post[0] really opened my eyes to the scale of the plan Trump et al has and the kinds of impacts it could have.

[0]: https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/trumps-deportation-army

This is an unfalsifiable statement that is far from translating into a sensible policy.

There are many (millions?) illegal immigrants from China, for example. How is the United States responsible for a kind of “humanitarian” crisis in China?

Should the United States accept anyone arriving from anywhere in the world claiming that the United States has caused a “humanitarian” crisis in their country? Who knows if it is true or not, and who cares, right, saying it is enough.

Would the US potentially mitigate the global "humanitarian crisis” going on, since millions of people from all over the world want to come to the U.S., by accepting everyone, providing food and services, etc.? Should the US organize transportation too, no question asked? When will it end, when no one wants to come to the United States? And the same is valid for Europe.

This is the kind of irritating nonsense I was talking about. A state, a country, is not a humanitarian NGO.

Well that used to be how it worked for the most part over 100 years ago. People just showed up and were able to become citizens largely frictionlessly. We can compromise between how immigration works today and how it worked during the heyday of Ellis Island but if you read the linked post in my previous comment you should see how simply saying we need to remove all these people and actually removing them is going to be quite a massive task. On a scale not seen in this country in decades if not centuries ago.

If this country isn’t a charity then why would we go from not feeding and housing millions of illegal immigrants to now having to cover three hots and a cot while deporting them? The cost argument is more in favor of granting amnesty to existing immigrants and reforming the system to better vet but give more streamlined processes to migrants to discourage border crossings.

This is a country built on immigration. You yourself are an immigrant to this country. Why do you deserve to be here any more than I do, someone born and raised here? Do you think the deportation forces if they come to your home or workplace and have questions about your legal status will be understanding of the fact you weren’t born here? Can we trust that the courts will give you due process when now having to handle quadruple the case load as before?

This glimpse into the past, for some reason, always ends at the most favorable time for the speaker/writer. For Native Americans, the idyllic time was when there were no Westerners. Pro-immigration people like the days of Ellis Island. But Native Americans wouldn't get back their home/land that you own now, would they? No one does.

The cost argument is also nonsensical, since the United States is spending billions of dollars to support Ukraine in a war that has very little to do with the United States. Sometimes paying is strategic and sometimes one simply thinks it is the right thing to do. Other times, however, you pay now to save money in the future.

“Why do you deserve to be here any more than I do, someone born and raised here?“ -- It is not a question of deserving or not deserving, but of following the procedures established by the United States of America for legal immigration into the country. If the U.S. had told me, no thanks, peace, I would have left. I think I deserve to be handsome, but I am short and ugly. That's the way it is.

“Do you think the deportation forces if they come to your home or workplace and have questions about your legal status will be understanding of the fact you weren’t born here?” -- Yes, I do. And if they don't understand, I'm not a citizen (yet -- I applied) and I understand that the U.S. government is allowing me to stay here and I could be “deported” under the laws and regulations of the United States of America.

“Can we trust that the courts will give you due process when now having to handle quadruple the case load as before?” -- If the occurrence of mistakes, which are inherently inevitable, did not allow actions to be pursued, no one would do anything.

"This is a country built on immigration." -- Would this lead to welcome with open arms everyone who wants to immigrate in the US? Should Australia, given their original Western stock, welcome criminals from all over the world, or maybe just England? The past should inform, but certainly not dictate. Should your ex-partner, since they loved you at some point in the past, love you forever?

The pro-illegal-whatever-immigration are scared of saying what they think, that is that they are good and kind people and the others are ugly and mean. But the real world is not a feeling-good novel, I am sorry.

Well I hope the worst does not come to past and if you are deported it goes as amicably and procedural as you describe.

I do not think dehumanizing people leads to peaceful and productive outcomes. The mass deportation plan does not address the humanitarian issues nor do I think it will solve all the problems it claims to, while creating many more problems.

If you still haven’t I highly recommend you read the linked article in my original comment reply. The past doesn’t dictate the future but what the past teaches us is these moments of mass forced deportation rarely turns out well.

The constant stream of incendiary rhetoric isn’t doing anyone any good.

Your link is just another “people who disagree with me are nazis” post. It makes wild assertions. Lies and insults aren’t productive, they don’t change policy.

The parent post made it clear they are an immigrant following the process; there has been zero discussion of deporting legal immigrants from any of the incoming administration.

Disagreeing with mass deportation is a perfectly reasonable take, but spreading hate isn’t the way to improve things.

Could you please provide a less incendiary source to break down the costs and potential processes involved in a mass deportation of illegal immigrants in the United States? Certainly it is important for everyone to have a productive discussion about this with less inflammatory information. Otherwise I ignore the Nazi comments and get to the heart of arguments presented. Which in my opinion has pretty compelling reasons for why one should oppose the potential plan for mass deportation Trump’s administration has mentioned.

> there has been zero discussion of deporting legal immigrants from any of the incoming administration

FYI this isn't true - Trump has spoken on denaturalization and Tom Homan (appointed by Trump) has spoken about deporting citizens who have family which are illegal.

The unfortunate reality is that the immigration rhetoric has nothing to do with economics or crime, rather they are a scapegoat. Fascist rhetoric relies on a ethnic minority to blame a nation's troubles on, and Trump has chosen those from latin America. Immigration is just a vehicle to get this ideology into your home and on your TV set, but it's not the goal. Ultimately, everyone is aware mass deportation won't make anything better for anyone. It won't help our economy, our deficit, our labor, or our crime.

Latin America has its own problems with or without American intervention. Venezuela elected Hugo Chavez all by itself and he destroyed the country. I am for a very lax immigration system but one that does have some form of accountability and enforcement the status quo is untenable.

> What is the policy and vision of those who oppose any deportation of illegal immigrants

The United States has a hilariously complicated historical relationship with immigrants.

* They are constantly the scapegoat of economic hardship, for one.

* We pendulum back and forth over the decades and even centuries on "immigrants good" and "immigrants" bad[0]

* In our regular swinging back and forth; and *ESPECIALLY* regarding people who were children when they came to the States, we have special-cased and threw under the rug literal millions of people without creating robust systems in place for the now 40-, 50- or 60-year old people who have literally built lives here that were brought over by their parents at ages 2... 3... etc. For those people especially, it's not a "go back to where you came from" sort of easy (though rude) statement. They have no where else. They lived here their whole lives and we've swept them under the rug. It is a national failing on our part.

* We regularly and randomly grant clemency to various illegal immigrants that further perpetuates the cycle of increasing our numbers of legally dubious presences of people in the US.

ALL OF THIS creates huge and complicated situations in the current political climate where we can't give naturalization/citizenship/whatever to these multiple millions of people because it would be rude or unfair or something.

Long story short, the United States ignores our real immigration situation; and, has for so, so, so long that not a single solution to it outside of pure clemency will result in anything but destroyed lives; and while some people may say (ignoring ALL the logistic ridiculousness / literal genocide that it may cost) "it's a bandaid we need to rip off" and ruin the lives of the 10s of millions of people we would shove back and the 100s of millions or more people that would be directly impacted by their deportation, others remember that each of those 10s of millions of people are a person with lives and the value inherent in every person, and should be treated as such.

Addendum: to answer the question directly, I would argue: immediate green-card status or similar to all Latin American individuals who have stayed here long term under DACA or any of the other previous status-dubious systems we've placed them under and either considering their existing time as time spent for citizenship purposes, or immediately starting their "Time in US" potential citizenship timeline. We can choose to close the borders again later. I care less about that than I do the many that are already here in their state of limbo.

[0] To be very clear, when politicians, etc, say immigrants, in almost every circumstance, it's code for Latin American immigrants. If someone says something along the lines of "Oh, I immigrated from Ireland" or "my family is German", there's an internal thought from many Americans of "Oh, we're not talking about you" or "oh, but you came here legally", even if most illegal immigrants are Visa overstays.

This comment would be perfect in the mouth of an ordinary politician, there is this, there is this other, we are ruining lives, etc.

Now, this is a comment on a forum, but I was asking, what is the policy/vision, and I can never get a straight answer. Let's say that in the last few years 5 million (maybe, who knows) people have entered the United States illegally, and as I see it, that is irresponsible, illegal, immoral. Now, if you propose to do something about this situation, which would ordinarily be “you are illegal, you have to go back and apply through the regular channels,” the charade of families who have been here for 50 years and are undocumented begins. Smoke, fog, “other things are more important.” The inevitable history lesson, Ellis Island, what about the Italian mafia? All nonsense.

I still cannot figure out from those in favor of (illegal) immigration a vision or policy. The only transparent ones are those who say that because some of these immigrants are paid much less than citizens or legal immigrants for certain jobs, it benefits "the economy" to have them here. Everyone else just presents their mood affiliation.

I don't know of many/anyone that's in favor of illegal immigration. Most people, I would argue, would say "if you just came across the border illegally, you should be sent back".

So there really __isn't__ an argument there, as far as I know, outside of the position that we should have a fully open border, which I believe is not a mainstream position.

*But*, that is *not* what people are actually talking about when they're talking illegal immigration. They're talking about the people who are already here, the regular scapegoats, so any conversation that talks about illegal immigration is going to necessarily talk about the people that have stayed here, and it's a smoke-screen for harming those individuals.

Funny, a lot of the people complaining about illegal immigration aren't even talking about illegal immigrants, but are scapegoating, again, the people on agricultural visas, etc.

But this whole conversation could be much more interesting if, instead of presenting a critical analysis of the language used by pro- or anti-immigration groups, some policies were discussed.

For example, one might say that undocumented people with no criminal records who have been here for more than x years, would be given documents. All the others will be deported. Then, one might discuss the merits of x years instead of z years, but it would be a starting point.

"I don't know of many/anyone that's in favor of illegal immigration" -- all those who are against deporting illegals, support illegal immigration. One cannot say with a straight face, well, I am of course against illegal immigration, but since they are already here..."Sure, I am against homicides but since the guy is already dead..."

> instead of presenting a critical analysis of the language used by pro- or anti-immigration groups, some policies were discussed.

> "I don't know of many/anyone that's in favor of illegal immigration" -- all those who are against deporting illegals, support illegal immigration.

An example of the reason there is critical analysis of language used is due to exactly what was done right here.

The article seems to assume the government will behave in a rather dumb way costing link $150k to remove each immigrant but I'm sure there are more efficient ways things could be sorted out? I'm not American so I'm not that up on the details.

I wonder how nobody talks about moral considerations of this atrocity.

Just like 80 years ago. “Do we have enough livestock cars to move them _all_ to Poland?”

I am scared for the future of our civilization.

There is no need to be hyperbolic. The US has regularly deported up to 1/2 a million people per year for over a decade until 2020 or so. Some years, the number of deportations exceeded 2 mil. This policy is just a return to the status quo.

https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigration/yearbook/2019/table3...

And you actually think this is good?

I purposefully did not state my feelings on the matter.

There is a large democratic majority that supports border enforcement including deportation. Shouldn't the policy conform to the majority.

No, total majority rule without safeguards is no better than tyranny. Even ancient Greeks knew that. So did founding fathers.

15-20M people over (at max) 4 years would be as much as 5 million per year, which is more than double "some years".

Even in the most generous (slow) version of this "deportation" scheme, the numbers are much higher than have been operated in the past.

> I wonder how nobody talks about moral considerations of this atrocity.

There has been a lot of talk about how immoral this is; but if you're not seeing it anymore, it's because the people in the spaces you learn from have given up. The people that don't want it *know* it's horrible and immoral and terrifying and evil and will result in enormous casualties of many, many, *many* of the proposed 20M as well as many many many of their friends and family.

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