Be Careful What You Wish For

When it comes to immigration, some folks on the right will never be moved by emotional appeals. Mothers being torn from sobbing children, terrified refugees being sent back to the countries where they face certain persecution…for some Americans, stories like these will only ever elicit one response: “They shouldn’t have come here illegally.” 

This article is for them. No sob stories, no guilt trips. Just numbers, facts, and logic.  

The minority of Americans who favor mass deportation have, in my experience, a few main misunderstandings that inform their stance. I used to believe some of these, and learning how misinformed I’d been—how I’d been lied to—changed my perspective. Maybe it will change yours, too.  

“Illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes.”

This is simply false. In 2023, unauthorized immigrants in the US paid between $55.8 and $66 billion dollars in federal taxes alone. Many immigrants who lack social security numbers use ITINs (Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers) issued by the IRS to pay their taxes. They pay these taxes despite being ineligible for most federal programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. Contrary to the impression some Americans have been given, the “lazy” immigrants they rail against are in effect subsidizing Social Security and Medicare for American citizens.  

“Illegal immigrants are destroying Social Security and Medicare.”

Before the election, Trump claimed that Democrats were “killing Social Security and Medicare by allowing the invasion of the migrants.”

It is possible for an immigrant to earn lawful status and pay into the system long enough to become eligible for Social Security, but immigrants without lawful status are ineligible. Only lawfully present immigrants who meet certain work and residency requirements can qualify for Medicare. Those here illegally are ineligible no matter how long they’ve lived here or how much they’ve paid into the system. Trump’s claims that immigrants are harming these programs are the opposite of reality: “Immigration, in general, has a very positive role,” says the chairman of the American Academy of Actuaries’ Social Security committee. 

As for immigrants fraudulently receiving benefits, it can and does happen, but is complicated and difficult to pull off, and therefore happens in small numbers. Andrew Biggs, former principal deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration, says “This is not a problem that I’ve heard specifically that, as [Vance] says, is widespread.”

“They’re sending their rapists; they’re sending their murderers.”

Setting aside the fact that “they” are not “sending” anyone, almost all of us agree that violent criminal aliens should be deported. But let’s address this assumption that immigrants are more likely to be criminals than the rest of us: once again, it’s not only false; it’s the opposite of the truth. 

Multiple large-scale studies have found that immigrants—including undocumented immigrants—are less likely to commit crimes than US-born citizens. This holds true for violent and non-violent crimes, across local, state, and national levels. US citizens are ten times more likely than immigrants to be incarcerated for weapons-related offenses, five times more likely for violent offenses, more than twice as likely for property crimes, and nearly twice as likely for drug crimes. Overall, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than US citizens. If you’re concerned about crime, you’re statistically much better off having immigrants as neighbors than American citizens. 

“We have to deport them all, then let people come back legally.”

Large majorities of Americans do not want to “deport them all.” But for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that the president can snap his fingers Thanos-style and instantly remove every undocumented immigrant from US soil. What would the effect on our economy be?

To put it simply: Apocalyptic. 

First, since he can’t actually Thanos-snap people away, there is the mind-boggling cost of the deportations themselves. Six months into Trump’s second term, ICE is already $1 billion over budget. If the so-called “big, beautiful bill” passes, ICE will be funded at $75 billion over the next five years—nearly triple its current budget. 

But on top of the astronomical expenditure to remove these people from the country, we have to consider the effects their absence would wreak. What do you think happens to a nation’s food supply when you kick out roughly half of crop farmworkers? Crops rot in the fields and we face severe shortages, obviously. What happens to real estate prices and supply when 17% of the construction workforce vanishes? Nothing good. What happens when one of every five janitors, groundskeepers, and maintenance workers is gone? When more than one in ten food service employees stop showing up? What happens to budgets across the country when almost $100 billion in tax revenue dries up?

You may be thinking that Americans will simply step into those jobs, but you’d be mistaken. For every 1 million unauthorized workers removed from the country, about 88,000 citizens will lose their jobs. That’s what happens when the economy shrinks. 

Just try to imagine the devastation in California, Texas, and Florida, which would each lose one in every twenty residents. What would that do to communities? Businesses? Schools? 

Removing every illegally present immigrant in America would shrink the economy by 4.2%-6.8%. For comparison, the devastating Great Recession of 2007-09 caused GDP to shrink 4.3%. 

In a nutshell: Great Recession-level wealth losses and unemployment are the best-case scenario if mass deportations succeed. 

Even if you don’t care about the suffering of non-citizens; if you’re in the “They shouldn’t have come here illegally” camp, you can at least appreciate the damage to Americans if we continue on this course—the harm you, your family, and your community will likely suffer if you insist on getting rid of “illegals.” 

Be careful what you wish for.