The Financial Disaster of Mass Deportation

On his recent interview with Elon Musk via X (formerly Twitter) Spaces, Donald Trump said that “We’re going to have the largest mass deportation operation in history” if he is elected President in November. If he follows through, it will have catastrophic consequences for our country. Even setting aside practical and moral concerns about mass deportation, it is part of a concerning trend. Donald Trump does not seem to understand that reducing the US immigrant population will hurt all of us in the long run. Doing it all at once would be an instant disaster.

We have little reason to doubt his seriousness. The former President’s administration tried to follow through on a considerable number of the campaign promises he made in 2016. His low approval rating, the Democratic opposition, and early struggles to gain control of his own party prevented him from total success, but it was not for lack of trying. From the Muslim ban to the halting efforts to build a border wall, Donald Trump made an effort to enact his campaign’s biggest policy proposals—especially those that excited his base.

Now he is catering to the base again, with even more profound implications than in 2016. Signs that read “Mass Deportation Now” were everywhere at the Republican National Convention. In an age where the primaries have guaranteed a nominee before the convention even begins, the event’s primary purpose is to drum up support, put its agenda in front of the American people, and set the tone for the next several months of campaigning. The Trump-dominated GOP chose “Mass Deportation Now” as its tone, and with it, total economic illiteracy on the issue of immigration.

There are many issues with mass deportations as a policy. Humanitarian concerns, basic civil liberties—these can and should be the first objections to the idea of rounding up somewhere north of 10 million people and sending them back to whatever country they happen to have been born in. Yet those who do not care very much about humanitarian concerns or civil liberties, either because the targets of this huge government operation will not be Americans or because they are all, by definition, criminals, should still pause at the idea of “the largest mass deportation operation in history.”

If you do not care one whit about the unauthorized immigrant population, you still should oppose this policy—especially if you are a fiscal conservative. It will not only be bad for the people who have failed to follow our arcane, byzantine immigration system to the letter. Deporting that many people will be a disaster for native-born American citizens, for legal immigrants, and by disrupting the biggest economy in the world, for all our neighbors, too.

It is no secret that population decline is one of the biggest threats to the modern world. (If you are still scared of overpopulation, sorry; 1990 wants its fear fad back.) Germany and Japan are the two biggest examples of prominent, economically successful countries facing serious downturn thanks to an aging population. No country with a shrinking population can sustain economic growth at the same rate as a growing country.

We can easily see why when we understand that modern countries require robust working-age populations to sustain our massive spending programs. According to US Census data,  64.56% of the US population in 2023 was between 15 and 64, or “working age.” Also in 2023, immigrants made up 18.6% of the US labor force. That is not surprising, since they are younger than the population at large. Even with the average age of arrival increasing in recent years—thanks largely to increased difficulty in immigration, such as long wait times and financial barriers—immigrants still come to the States at an average age of 30.6 compared to the US median age of 38.9. Over 86% are working age. Immigration is necessary for the US workforce to sustain our current massive social programs without blowing up the deficit even further. Reducing immigration and/or deporting a huge number of working age immigrants will cause the deficit to balloon out of control.

Fellow conservatives and libertarians reading this may say “Just cut the spending too!” Would that it was so simple, dear reader! Decades of successive administrations have proven that there is no one with the political will to cut spending in this country. Fiscal conservatism has been a dead letter in the halls of power. It is a cause worth fighting for, but we cannot make other policies with future fiscal conservatism as an assumed fact. Especially not with Trump and Harris as our major-party presidential candidates.

If the US is a car speeding toward a fiscal cliff, enacting a huge spending line for the sole purpose of reducing the US population is akin to cutting the brake lines. Removing the unauthorized immigrant population in one fell swoop will truncate US productivity to an almost incalculable degree. Unauthorized immigrants do pay slightly less in taxes than they receive in benefits. But the way to solve that issue is by reducing benefit payouts, not by mass deportation operations that will cause a huge shock to our economy. COVID lockdown-style shortages would follow, and the pro-deportation crowd will have themselves to blame. Given their record, they would likely find a scapegoat and then try to spend their way out of it. Fiscal conservatives will lose on both sides of the equation if we tolerate mass deportation and immigration reduction to pass as “conservative” policies.

Instead of spending big to excise a symptom, Trump should pledge to solve the fiscal drain on the payout side. He should plan to streamline a documentation system that leaves non-experts’ heads spinning. He should solve the problem by creating a sustainable path to citizenship that does not incentivize some people to break the rules. But I doubt he will pivot to sound policy once in office. No matter who is elected, we should not hold our breath for economically literate solutions to our immigration problem.