How Trump's mass deportation plan would impact immigrant workers and the economy.

• After the election results, President-Elect Trump has stated that he must pursue mass deportation and has told NBC News that there is no cost associated with it.
• The construction, housing, and agriculture sectors will be severely impacted if the plan aims to include undocumented workers, temporary workers, and recently crossed migrants.
• According to an immigration policy group, GDP could decrease by $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion if Trump's immigration plan is implemented. However, in recent comments, Trump stated that his plan will attract more businesses to the country and the U.S. requires more workers to grow.

Trump's victory in the White House was largely due to his promises to limit immigration, which included sending criminals back to their home countries and implementing mass deportations. During the campaign, he pledged to end Temporary Protected Status, which allows workers from certain countries to work in the U.S. If some of the larger deportation efforts, such as rolling back TPS, come to fruition, experts predict that there will be significant economic consequences, particularly in the construction, housing, and agriculture sectors.

The concern of economists and labor specialists is centered on the economic consequences of policies that would expel workers who are already in the U.S., regardless of their legal status.

Staffing agencies were watching the election especially closely.

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

The labor crisis caused by the post-Covid economic boom has been resolved, and the labor supply and demand have been balanced in recent months. However, the number of workers available to fill jobs across the U.S. economy is still a critical data point to monitor. Employers and economists warn that mass deportation would worsen this economic issue.

The implementation of proposed immigration policies could result in a substantial impact, as estimated by Leverant, who pointed out that a mass deportation program could leave up to one million job vacancies.

How many undocumented immigrants work in the U.S.

The undocumented immigrant population in the United States is estimated to be around 11 million by various sources. The Center for American Progress puts the number at 11.3 million, with 7 million of them working. The American Immigration Council, an advocacy group in favor of expanding immigration, cites data from an American Community Survey to put the number at around 11 million. The non-partisan Pew Research Center, on the other hand, puts the number at closer to 8 million people.

"Chad Prinkey, CEO of Well Built Construction Consulting, stated that there are millions of undocumented workers in the trades, and the construction industry lacks enough Americans to do the work. He emphasized the need for these workers to be documented, so their identities, locations, and tax payments can be verified. Despite this, he acknowledged that the industry does not want these workers to leave."

It is yet to be determined how jobs lost due to mass deportation will be replaced, according to Leverant.

""We must stay ahead of the issue of pulling talent from one area to another, which can result in someone else losing it, as Leverant pointed out," said Leverant."

Leverant is not worried about losing any of the 20,000 workers AtWork sends to various places because document status is rigorously checked. However, if other companies lose workers, they will rely more heavily on staffing agencies like AtWork for talent that is already in short supply. This will increase worker wages due to supply and demand, which will have a ripple effect throughout the supply chain, impacting supermarkets and sporting goods stores.

He stated that we are currently playing the long game, and as a result, we will experience pain, shortages, slow-downs, and delays on all fronts.

Limited labor supply may result in delayed construction projects or failure to bring products to market due to insufficient workers.

Worries about workforce extend to skilled labor, tech

Skilled workers may be negatively affected by stricter immigration policies.

According to Leverant, the shortage of skilled labor extends beyond low-skilled jobs and affects tech workers and engineers as well. There is a lack of qualified talent to fill these positions, he said. Leverant emphasized that he does not foresee doctors and scientists being deported, but rather restrictions on H-1B visas and a less welcoming environment could discourage potential talent from coming.

Uber Works' head of expansion, Janeesa Hollingshead, believes that technology will be affected if the past serves as a guide.

Immigrants are crucial to the tech industry, as Hollinghead pointed out, recalling how Uber informed all tech workers on H-1B visas during Trump's first presidency that if they went to their home countries for holidays, they may not be able to return.

During the first Trump administration, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied a higher percentage of H-1B petitions than in the previous four years. However, many of the denials were overturned, resulting in a lower level of denials by fiscal 2020. The denial rates for fiscal years 2021 and 2022 were the lowest ever recorded.

According to Hollingshead, U.S. tech companies will be obligated to source tech talent from underutilized groups already residing in the country.

According to Hollingshead, U.S. companies will have to find a solution to this issue or risk a more severe labor shortage.

David Leopold, chair of the immigration practice group at law firm U.B. Greensfelder, believes that we cannot dismiss the mass deportation process as mere rhetoric, and we must take his words seriously.

Although the potential consequences on the job market could be significant, it may be challenging to implement large-scale deportations in reality.

Leopold predicted that Trump would use ICE and federal agencies, as well as local law enforcement, to remove 11 million people, which he said would be very expensive.

In a phone interview with NBC News anchor Kristen Welker shortly after the election results, Trump invoked the darker rhetoric on migrants that proved successful during the campaign while stating that he is not opposed to people coming into the country. In fact, he said that more people will be required if his administration's strategy of requiring businesses to set up operations within the U.S. is successful. "We want people to come in," Trump said. "We're gonna have a lot of businesses coming into our country. They want to come into our country. ... We want companies and factories and plants and automobile factories to come into our country, and they will be coming. And therefore we need people, but we want people that aren't necessarily sitting in a jail because they murdered seven people."

According to the American Immigration Council, if a mass deportation operation were to target one million people per year, the annual cost would average out to $88 billion, resulting in a total cost of $967.9 billion over the course of more than a decade.

In his interview with NBC News, Trump stated that cost is not a concern. "It's not about a price tag," he said. "We have no choice. When people have committed heinous crimes and destroyed countries, they must return to those countries. ... There is no price tag."

Depending on the severity of the plan, changes could result in higher prices, supply issues, and limited access to goods and services for consumers, as stated by Leopold.

Construction and housing damage

The American Immigration Council's research director, Nan Wu, shares the predictions of others that an increase in deportations under Trump could lead to chaos for consumers.

Undocumented immigrant workers are crucial to many U.S. industries, and their removal through mass deportation would worsen existing labor shortages, particularly in the construction industry, where 14% of workers are undocumented, according to AIC's research.

Wu stated that the shortage of workers in construction would increase costs and cause delays in building new homes, ultimately making housing less affordable in many regions.

The agriculture industry would also experience a loss of one in eight workers, she says.

According to Wu, approximately one-quarter of farm workers, agricultural graders, and sorters are undocumented workers. The loss of agricultural workers who grow, pick, and pack our food would negatively impact domestic food production and increase food prices.

In 2018, the most recent year for which figures are available, the USDA estimated that 41% of farm workers were undocumented, with California having the highest number.

The AIC predicts that the U.S. GDP will decrease by approximately $600 billion to $1.1 trillion.

Undocumented workers pose a challenge because their numbers are unknown, making it difficult to determine the impact of a mass deportation program. According to Prinkey, it is likely that more than half of on-site labor in specific geographic regions is undocumented.

Union workers, like those in the nuclear facility and colleges and universities sectors, will likely continue to work despite a higher level of oversight, according to Prinkey.

According to Prinkey, the single-family and multi-family housing construction sectors could be "paralyzed," resulting in significant impacts.

"The average 18-month project could take five years to complete due to the limited number of bodies, according to Prinkey. However, the impact in Boston would be less severe than in Austin, where it could shut down every project," he stated.

Although the outlook is grim, Prinkey believes that mass deportation will not occur. "As a developer, Donald Trump comprehends the situation. A mass deportation cannot be achieved without causing significant economic damage," he stated.

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