President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to launch an intensive campaign of immigration enforcement, or “mass deportations” for short, is feasible and will be beneficial to Americans.
While there will be some increased costs to boost enforcement, the return on investment is significant and comes in the form of more jobs for Americans, and less money needed for services to migrants and safer communities.
Our nation has experienced an unprecedented influx of illegal migration under President Joe Biden’s policies, with profound consequences for the communities absorbing the migrants. Since 2021, more than 7.5 million inadmissible migrants have been allowed to enter outside the legal programs, pushing the foreign-born share to 14 percent of our population, the highest in history.
The cost of this mass resettlement program has been enormous — hundreds of billions of dollars for transportation, housing, food, medical care, schooling and other services to the migrants. Most of the cost is borne by state and local taxpayers, especially in sanctuary jurisdictions like California, New York and Massachusetts, which have spent extravagantly on shelters and other support.
We are told by critics of immigration enforcement that Trump’s mass deportation plan, to be led by new border czar Tom Homan, is logistically impossible and too costly to achieve.
That’s wishful thinking on the part of the critics. The immigration agencies have numerous authorities and tools available to them. They have been prevented from using these tools under Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who nearly managed to abolish ICE with directives restricting enforcement and giving most illegal aliens (and their employers) a free pass from any threat of arrest or consequences. Under Biden, ICE deported less than half the number of people from the interior as Trump did. Once the constraints are lifted, which Trump has promised to do on day one, the Border Patrol and ICE will be back in business, using their resources for removing illegal aliens instead of catching and releasing them.
Homan has indicated that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s first priority will be to go after the 1.4 million documented aliens who have committed crimes or who have had their day (or years) in immigration court and been ordered removed. This docket will keep ICE busy for a while. Still, the cases are relatively low-hanging fruit without the need for extensive due process.
Meanwhile, we can expect to see a resumption of enforcement targeted at employers who hire illegal workers and often exploit them and fail to pay appropriate payroll taxes and maintain safe working conditions. Of course, any undocumented workers encountered in those operations should also be put on the path to removal.
A little more worksite enforcement will go a long way toward encouraging more voluntary compliance by employers, who will clean up their hiring to avoid the cost and reputational damage of being shut down by a raid. As one staffing company executive told a reporter, “Once one of the plants is raided or there’s an audit, everybody will start to scramble at that time.”
Just as employers will change their behavior, so, too, will those living here illegally, especially when the millions of work permits improperly granted begin to expire. When people weigh the benefits and risks of remaining here with dwindling opportunities for employment, they will realize that the better choice is to return to their home countries along with their families and whatever nest egg they have accumulated.
Trump will have to endure a relentless narrative that these measures are cruel and heartless, but Americans will welcome the relief. Curtailing mass illegal migration will open up jobs for millions of sidelined Americans, just as it did after the last significant pause in immigration 100 years ago. It will also preserve scarce public resources to invest in American communities instead of resettlement programs.
Finally, it will restore public faith in our government’s management of legal immigration, which was significantly eroded over the last four years.
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