WASHINGTON — The primary immigration and economic policy position at issue in the 2024 campaigns is whether the mass deportation program envisioned by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 will begin in January of next year. We expect it to be discussed in the Vice Presidential debate on Tuesday. If allowed to move forward, mass deportation would have dire consequences as we saw in Jackson, MS in 2019 and Morristown, TN in 2018.
Earlier today, experts who have witnessed and studied mass deportation events and those who have written about the logistical and economic consequences joined a press briefing to discuss the potential impact of mass deportation at the local and national level.
Speakers spoke to the logistical challenges, the predictable economic consequences; and the long-term consequences of the massive Jackson, MS raid, and the community and family consequences of the Morristown, TN raid.
Note: Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, Jason Houser, former ICE Chief of Staff, who was scheduled to speak on the call, was unable to join us.
Michael Ettlinger, fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, said: “The economic literature shows clearly that mass deportation is bad for the economy: it’s bad for businesses, bad for tax collections, bad for American workers and bad for the prices paid by consumers. That’s what researchers find when they look at past large scale deportations and it’s what economists project for future mass deportation. The idea that deportation is good for Americans has proven to be an illusion in the past and the idea that mass deportation in the future would be good for Americans moves from illusion to delusion.”
Christopher Ross, Vice President of Migration and Refugee Resettlement Services at Catholic Charities USA, said: “[Mass deportation] will pose insurmountable challenges to communities, especially local and state governments […] Policy debates on both sides of the aisle appear to be focused on closing the border. But what happens the next day? What is the legal way for immigrants to arrive in the United States if their only realistic pathway, asylum, is closed or at minimum, altered? The US deeply needs immigration reform, and leaders must have serious conversations to create it.”
Lisa Sherman Luna, Executive Director, Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and TIRRC Votes, said: “The devastating individual and communal trauma caused by militarized immigration enforcement cannot be overstated. When we arrived in Morristown, Tennessee after the 2018 workplace raid that saw 97 workers detained, it was like a bomb had gone off—helicopters flying overhead, children riding the bus home to empty homes, and families desperately trying to find information about their loved ones who were detained—and the effects on the community were felt for years. We can’t go back to that. We must move forward and create an immigration system that allows immigrant families to access pathways to citizenship and opportunities to remain safely in the communities they call home.”
Angela Kelley, Sr. Advisor to the President of American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), said: “We’ve heard repeated foot stomping promises that there will be scaled up mass deportation of undocumented immigrants depending on the outcome of the election in November. […] If large scale removals of undocumented immigrants, in fact, begin to happen, it will affect all Americans, because, inconveniently, undocumented people don’t live in an apartment building all by themselves. In fact, undocumented people are in all 50 states, and Pew Research shows that over 8 million workers in the United States are undocumented.”
RESOURCES:
For months, America’s Voice and partner organizations have been bringing attention to the Trump/Vance promise of mass deportations – and the predicted humanitarian and economic consequences. Here is analysis and background on Trump’s mass deportation plan:
- Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (and National Immigration Law Center): Lessons from East Tennessee: A Toolkit for Organizations Responding to Mass Worksite Immigration Raids
- Christopher Ross paper for the Center for Migration Studies, August 2024: Immigration Raids in Jackson, Mississippi, Five Years Later: An Evidence-Based Analysis to Dissuade Mass Deportation Policy and Promote a New Immigration Pathway
- “Literature Review on the Economic Consequences of the Deportation of Unauthorized Immigrants,” by Robert G. Lynch (Washington College – Department of Economics) and Michael Ettlinger (University of New Hampshire)
- “The Economic Impact on Citizens and Authorized Immigrants of Mass Deportation,” by Robert Lynch and Michael Ettlinger
- Michael Ettlinger, Boston Globe op-ed: “Trump’s plan to vaporize the economy”
- Michael Ettlinger op-ed: “Of Course Immigrants Bring More Jobs and Higher Pay for Americans” (Medium)
- America’s Voice release, “The Costs and Consequences of Making as Many Immigrants Deportable as Possible”
- America’s Voice analysis, “Trump’s Team Real Scheme Revealed: A Pledge to Deport Immigrants with LEGAL Status”
- AV Substack, “VP Harris Warns of the Details of Trump’s Signature Policy – Mass Deportation – That He’s Too Scared to Talk About”
