Donald Trump and Stephen Miller are demanding $70 billion more in reconciliation funding for their mass deportation machine, no matter the cost to American families, workers, or taxpayers. While Americans struggle to afford housing, food, and childcare, Trump and Miller want to funnel tax dollars into a reckless agenda that kills jobs, crushes purchasing power, and drains revenue, all with zero accountability or oversight.
The evidence is mounting across every sector of the American economy. From construction sites and childcare centers to fishing boats and nursing homes, Trump and Miller’s deportation machine is already doing real damage, and it’s only getting worse. Congress must reject this blank check and put taxpayer dollars toward what families actually need.
Here’s what the record shows:
The Deportation Machine Is Costing Americans Hundreds of Billions in Lost Tax Revenue
- ICE raids have disrupted local economies, freezing commerce and shrinking consumer spending as entire neighborhoods go “oddly quiet” following enforcement actions.
- Trump’s immigration crackdown could cost the federal government nearly half a trillion dollars in lost tax revenue over the next decade.
- In Rhode Island alone, mass deportation could drain $95 million in state and local taxes, gutting vital programs at a time when state budgets are already stretched thin.
The Deportation Machine Is Making Everything More Expensive for American Families
- American families will pay an additional $2,150 annually by the end of 2028 because of mass deportation policies.
- Essentials take the hardest hit: food prices are expected to increase by 14.5% and construction prices by 6.1%.
- Construction firms operating on razor-thin margins can’t absorb cost overruns, so they’re passing them directly to consumers – especially as they grapple with a 7.5% drop in employment caused by ICE raids.
- In Central Florida, a surge in housing and infrastructure projects is colliding with a shrinking labor force and forcing higher costs onto families.
The Deportation Machine Is Destabilizing the Workforce Across Every Sector
- Workforce collapses are compounding these price hikes. Canceling legal work permits for TPS and other protected statuses would sideline 3.1 million workers: 650,000 in construction, 450,000 in leisure and hospitality, 440,000 in retail and wholesale trade, and 320,000 in manufacturing.
- Trump’s visa crackdown has created so much uncertainty that large corporations like Apple and Google are warning visa-holding employees to not leave the country. This visa uncertainty is destabilizing a sector where 80% of companies have an immigrant or H-1B visa holder in a leadership role.
- Trump’s immigration crackdown is endangering lives by driving a summer lifeguard shortage as seasonal businesses nationwide struggle to fill positions that rely on foreign workers under restrictive or frozen visa programs.
- The administration’s visa lottery has left shrimpers scrambling to find workers. In South Texas, shrimpers are urging the Trump administration to approve more H-2B temporary work visas before the July season starts, warning “we are a dying industry right now.”
The Deportation Machine Is Crushing Care Infrastructure
- A peer-reviewed study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that as ICE enforcement intensified, the formal childcare sector lost capacity: centers reduced enrollment, closed classrooms, and in some cases shut down entirely.
- The childcare sector employs nearly one million workers, generates $7.2 billion in quarterly wages, and relies on roughly 20% immigrant labor.
- Mass deportation is already hitting eldercare hard, an industry where more than 40% of home health aides in the U.S. are foreign-born. Slow visa processing is forcing staff shortages, and in at least one Florida facility, forcing the closure of entire wings.
- The research confirms what facilities are already experiencing. One in five healthcare support workers in the U.S. is an immigrant, according to a new MIT study. That research also found that increases in immigration consistently correlate with lower elderly mortality rates.
The bottom line: Trump and Miller are demanding $70 billion more for a deportation machine that’s already making groceries more expensive, shutting down childcare centers, deepening the housing crisis, and draining hundreds of billions in tax revenue, with zero accountability or oversight. Congress must reject this blank check.
