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Donald Trump has committed to initiating what he describes as the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, vowing to begin the process on his first day in office if re-elected. His promise signals a continuation of his hardline stance on immigration, with a focus on removing undocumented immigrants.
Putting the plan into action, however, could prove challenging. “Rhetoric is one thing,” noted Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell University, adding that “actual implementation is something else entirely.” Yale-Loehr’s remarks highlight the potential gap between policy promises and real-world execution.
“The Constitution provides due process for everyone in the country, not just US citizens, so Trump cannot just round up people and send them out of the country the next day,” Yale-Loehr told AFP. “There already is a backlog of over 3.6 million cases in our immigration courts.”
Beyond the humanitarian and legal concerns, expelling millions would carry enormous financial implications, affect economic sectors, and present a logistical ordeal. Such an undertaking would necessitate meticulous coordination and immense resources to achieve.
“It would require Congress to give the administration tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, of dollars,” he said.
The economic consequences of a mass deportation could be substantial, especially in sectors like construction, agriculture, and hospitality, where immigrant workers play a vital role. Experts caution that the removal of this workforce could lead to labor shortages, increasing costs, and slowing growth in these industries.
“Undocumented immigrants are a crucial part of the US economy,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
“If those people leave the workforce out of fear or because they’ve been deported it is going to cause a very significant labor shortage and cause inflation to rise and the cost of goods to rise as well,” he said.
An AIC study highlighted the economic fallout of mass deportation, estimating a GDP decline of between 4.2 and 6.8 percent. The report also warned of a substantial decrease in tax revenue across federal, state, and local levels, underscoring the potential fiscal strain on government budgets.
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“During the Great Recession, US GDP dropped by 4.3 percent so mass deportations of the entire undocumented population would cause the US economy to crash,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “At the height of the Great Recession, 15 million Americans were out of work.”
He said the first thing he expected to see happen under Trump, who made anti-immigrant rhetoric a central theme of his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, would be restrictions on legal immigration.
“This was the Muslim ban, or travel ban, of his first term,” he said. “Along with the travel bans, we would likely see additional visa bans.”
Trump has further promised to swiftly terminate a humanitarian program that permitted legal entry for citizens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The program, originally designed to provide refuge for those fleeing hardship, has been a point of contention in immigration policy.
“And as we saw in his first term, his administration is very willing to kick hundreds of thousands of people out of legal status,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
In his latest border security strategy, the former Republican president has not only pledged to complete the US-Mexico wall but has also proposed an expanded deployment of American troops for border enforcement, aiming to add a military dimension to immigration control.
