One in every eight Americans are immigrants and California is home to 10.6 million of them. To that end, immigrants have significant importance on the economy and culture of California. It is a large misconception that immigrants don’t positively contribute to the economy and benefit from their residency in the US without paying taxes. In fact, the reality is to the contrary. According to ca.gov, “In 2021, immigrants contributed $51.4 billion to California’s state and local taxes and $81.8 billion to federal taxes and had $354 billion in spending power.” Immigrants not only contribute fiscally to California’s economy regardless of their legal status, but also make up one-third of the workforce, especially in essential jobs which directly serve society such as agricultural work, entrepreneurship, and education.
Seemingly in disregard of these facts, President Trump has made opposing immigration an essential part of his platform. During his first days in office, declared a national emergency at the Southern border, signed an executive order to revoke birth-right citizenship, and re-started construction of the infamous US/Mexico border wall. With the aim to deport immigrants at an exceptionally fast rate, logistics of this ambition have been called into question, especially in the context of increasingly intensive emphasis on government efficiency in the recent administration. The President has set the goal to deport all 11 million immigrants, which has been calculated to cost the government about 315 billion dollars. This goal would require a large expansion of the government bureaucracies that handle deportations. Not only are the projections for immigration and deportation radical and costly, but their consequences may weaken the economy and culture of California.
The unintended implications of a mass deportation of this scale include removing and reducing the amount of capital and tax dollars contributing to the economy as well as vacancy in millions of essential jobs which immigrant demographics historically serve. According to the Joint Economic Committee, “deporting one million people each year until there is no undocumented population—could amount to a 4.2% to 6.8% loss in GDP (totaling $1.1 to $1.7 trillion in losses), with the effects felt most acutely in California, Florida, and Texas.” To put these obscure numbers into context, the percent loss in GDP during the Great Recession was 4.3%. Independent from other government policies which are projected to affect the US economy or whether or not the Trump Administrations’ deportation plans are publicly favored, an increase of deportations to this scale will have massive economic implications on both ends.
Hitting a wall within the first weeks of the Trump Administration, representatives of government departments such as ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have asked for millions of dollars for additional funding and layed out the cost of newly implemented strategies to achieve the Trump Administration’s lofty ambitions. Senate Republicans have proposed an additional $175 billion for border security and the House GOP is petitioning for $110 billion in additional funding for immigration and border security. The President has told reporters that money is no object when it comes to immigration. Where this money will come from has been a heavily anticipated issue in recent weeks. The Joint Economic Committee has also reported “this deportation plan would cut $23 billion in funds for Social Security and $6 billion from Medicare each year because these workers would no longer pay into these programs”. Spending on this level must be an object of consideration.
In order to pay for the deportation of “millions and millions” of immigrants, as Trump stated to aspire to do in his inaugural speech, cuts will have to be made elsewhere in the government. The introduction of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, has introduced a new emphasis on government efficiency. The new department has cut billions of dollars of funding from government agencies such as the termination of foreign aid in the form of the halting of over 90% of the United States Agency for International Development funding, cuts to the Department of Education and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and overall downsizing of federal workers, to name a few. The Trump administration has also called for help from outside agencies such as the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to make up for shortages in ICE.
The American people are indirectly paying for the increased severity of national border security and deportation under the Trump Administration with cut funds to many fundamental agencies and programs. On the other end, all American citizens, specifically in states with a high population of immigrant tax-payers and workers, will feel the effects of a weakened economy and workforce. California has the highest number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, a disproportionately large amount of whom make up the workforce. Based on reports by the American Immigration Council, “With an unemployment rate averaging under 4.0 percent since 2022, U.S.-born workers could not fill all the jobs of undocumented workers even if they tried to. The country is heavily reliant on an undocumented workforce in industries like construction, agriculture, and hospitality”.
In the agriculture industry specifically, about 50% of agricultural workers in California are undocumented immigrants, many more of whom are in the United States temporarily but legally. A professor of economics at California State University-Bakersfield stated that the loss of a significant portion of the farm labor force will become an “absolute economic devastation” and warned of a “recession-level event if this becomes the new long-term norm.” Without enough working-aged citizens to fill these potentially-vacant essential jobs, coupled with a recession-level percentage decrease in GDP, the United States economy, specifically in California, is headed for an economic downfall partially at the hands of the Trump administrations’ strategy for deportations.
Beyond California, the Trump Administration seems to be more based in political rhetoric than actual ideology. On the one hand, it aims to eliminate what it terms as government bloat. On the other hand, it aims to expand the Federal Bureaucracy to effect its xenophobic plans. These idiosyncrasies seem posed to have real detrimental consequences to the economy, specifically in California.
Featured Image Source: NBC News
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