In today’s Finshots, we take a look at the impact of Trump’s deportation moves.

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The Story

On February 5, 2025, a military aircraft from Texas, USA, landed in Amritsar, Punjab, carrying over 100 undocumented Indians back home. Looks like Trump wasn’t kidding about his promise of mass deportations of illegal aliens residing on American soil. Or, as he calls it, “the largest deportation effort in American history.”

And this is just the beginning. The US immigration authorities plan to send nearly 20,000 Indian nationals back soon. Plus, children born in the US to undocumented immigrants should no longer get automatic citizenship.

It’s not just Indians, though. The US has sealed deals with several South American countries like El Salvador, Venezuela, and Colombia to take back deported citizens.

At this point, you might think, “Well, that’s fair. People entering a country without appropriate permissions and immigration documents are bound to be deported.”

But Trump isn’t just focusing on legality; he’s framing deportations as a crackdown on crime by targeting migrants with criminal records — his way of saying it’s time to clean up American communities. Plus, he’s framing illegal immigration as a strain on resources and jobs which could otherwise be taken by Americans, pitching deportations as the magic bullet to fix it all.

So, let’s look at each claim independently. 

Claim 1: Illegal immigration imposes a massive strain on resources and jobs. 

This is undoubtedly true. Any kind of immigration will impose some strain on resources. For instance, the city of New York alone reports it has spent or expects to spend $12 billion over the next three years on housing, food, health care, and other services for recently arrived illegal immigrants. And to cover these costs, they expect to cut budgetary allocation for services like public education and the police department. Also, across many states in the US, illegal immigrants may also be eligible for welfare programs. 

Source: www.cis.org

These are assistance programs sponsored by governments for needy individuals and families, including schemes such as food stamps, health care assistance, and unemployment compensation. And as you can see, illegal immigrants generally have a higher dependence on welfare programs.

Finally, even though illegal immigrants contribute to the economy in myriad ways (which we will discuss soon enough), the net financial impact of illegal immigrants throughout their lifetimes is positive only when these individuals hold a college degree. If they don’t hold any degree (which is usually the case with most immigrants), they can cost the American economy upwards of $50,000 over their entire lifetime. 

That is expensive!

Claim 2: They take away jobs and add to crime

On the jobs front, the data is less clear. It seems that they do offer some long-term benefits for the labour market as illegal immigrants become active participants in the economy. But in the short term, this may come at the cost of native-born workers. For instance, a famous study finds that when a lot of immigrants enter a certain skill group (like construction workers or factory workers), wages for that group tend to go down. This is because more people are competing for the same jobs. 

The only problem is that this relationship breaks over longer time frames. So it’s a bit ambiguous. 

However, with crime, the data is much stronger. While there is some research to indicate that in specific border areas, there may be an uptick in certain crimes (like smuggling or minor offences related to illegal entry), it seems there is no strong link between illegal immigration and crime. 

So, despite what Trump may want the US public to believe, these are the hard, cold facts. 

Okay, so these are the problems with illegal immigration. 

Now let’s look at what happens when illegal immigrants make their way into the US anyhow, stay there for long periods of time and add to the American economy. 

For starters, illegal immigrants aren’t just passive recipients of aid; they are also active contributors. Agriculture, construction, manufacturing, hospitality, care and food services rely heavily on migrant labour. These jobs are physically demanding and pay less, and many Americans don’t want them. And employers, too, benefit from hiring undocumented workers because they can pay lower wages and don’t have to offer benefits like health insurance or retirement plans.

And the astounding fact is that these illegal aliens form nearly 5% of the US workforce, with undocumented households having a combined income of $330 billion and paying almost $100 billion in taxes. 

If all these immigrants were suddenly sent to their home countries, it would not only create a labour shortage in the US but also reduce billions in taxes paid to the American government. The economy could shrink by up to 6.8%, according to the American Immigration Council, and that’s a hit almost as bad as what happened during the Great Recession.

And it’s not just the US that would suffer because many of these immigrants send money back to their families in their home countries. For instance, in 2024, India received a record $111 billion from the Indian immigrant population. While most of this money came from legal workers, illegal immigrants also sent back a share. And if they all get sent home, India and other countries would lose out on remittances.

So for all the talk about immigration’s importance, why hasn’t the US simply fixed its policies?

Well, because immigration reform is stuck in a political tug-of-war. It’s a highly polarising issue among voters. Politicians don’t want to take a strong stance for fear of losing support. So, even though every government talks about fixing immigration, meaningful reforms remain elusive. 

Also, despite his aggressive stance on immigration, Trump's first-term deportations sit at 3.13 million, slightly lower than Obama’s 3.16 million. Meanwhile, under Joe Biden, deportations surged to 4.44 million in just two years: 2021 and 2022. 

So yes, while leaders may portray immigration as a crisis, their actions don’t always match their words.

Coming back to the issue, even if Trump pushes ahead with his plan, there’s a big problem: the cost because mass deportation is both a logistical and financial nightmare.

As of 2024, the average cost to deport a single individual was nearly $14,000, up from $10,070 in 2015. So, the cost of removing 11 million people (as per Trump’s ambitious deportation plan) would exceed $150 billion. In addition, detention facilities cost thousands of dollars per bed. If the government scales up these efforts, mass deportation could become an economic trouble for the US itself.

But what about the Americans? What do they support? Well, according to the Pew Research Center, upwards of 60% of those surveyed believe illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay under certain conditions. That’s because mass deportations don’t just impact immigrants—they also affect businesses, tax revenues, and communities in the US. And that’s something even Trump might have to think twice about.

Until then…

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