The second Trump administration has – in less than a year – established a whole-of-government campaign against immigrants. Their mass deportation agenda is being carried out through indiscriminate and often violent raids and arrests. These arrests have drawn significant attention for the resulting family separations and disappearances of community members to inhumane prisons here and abroad. In addition to this immediate pain to those whose families are being torn apart, the Trump administration’s immigration agenda directly harms our collective economy, health, and safety as a nation. This commentary reviews the harm thus far to our country, as the administration pursues its mindless ambitions.

The only coherent policy goal of this administration when it comes to immigration is its relentless pursuit of cruelty—no matter what the cost and no matter what else is impacted. The strategy is clear: to cultivate so much suffering and fear, through real and threatened violence, that immigrants choose to abandon their communities and lives in the United States. As a nation, we are witnessing the profound cost—in both tangible and intangible ways—of a government deliberately targeting a community for misery, making life so unbearable that they consider exiling themselves to survive.

Our Economy

The human costs of mass deportation are clear, but sometimes less visible are the financial costs to American communities. The harm is immediate and expansive, affecting our nation’s GDP, the job market, the cost of goods, and lost tax revenue.

Mass deportations are forecast to reduce our nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP, a measure of the overall economy) by more than 7 percent in the next three years—greater than the damage to the U.S. economy during the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009, when the country’s GDP fell by more than 4 percent. In addition, despite the administration’s claims, the actual consensus of researchers is clear: mass deportations cause U.S. citizens to lose jobs. According to one estimate, if the administration succeeds in its staggering and inhumane goal of removing 4 million people over the next 4 years, there would be 2.6 million fewer jobs for U.S.-born workers.

Communities are also seeing the ramifications of this cruelty in the prices they pay for food and housing. Economists have estimated that deporting 1.3 million immigrants would increase prices 1.5 percent in the next three years. Deporting 8.3 million immigrants in that time would increase prices by more than 9 percent. This is greater than the inflation the United States saw from 2019 to 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when prices went up by less than 8 percent over three years.

Immigrants are essential to the U.S. economy, paying almost $580 billion in taxes annually, including massive contributions to federal, state, and Social Security taxes. Contrary to this administration’s claims, undocumented immigrants contribute far more to Social Security than they receive; in 2022, for example, they contributed $26 billion in Social Security taxes, despite being ineligible to receive the benefits they pay for. The Social Security program is already facing a funding shortfall; lower immigration (not even mass deportation) would create an increased shortfall by more than 11 percent. The administration’s efforts to allow the Internal Revenue Service to share private taxpayer information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will likely result in less tax revenue from immigrants due to a chilling effect.

Small businesses and farmers are already enduring very real harms less than one year into the administration’s campaign of cruelty. Since January, the labor force has already shrunk by more than 1.2 million immigrant workers. Restaurant owners, already facing economic hardships, are struggling to keep their businesses staffed and afloat. Other small business owners across the country have experienced sharp decreases in customer traffic due to fears of immigration enforcement. Some business owners report losing up to 50 percent of their customers, and up to two-thirds of their workforce. Farmers are especially hard hit. Over the last three decades, approximately 40 percent of the farm labor force has been made up of undocumented immigrants. In addition to mass deportation, the reduction in the numbers of immigrants arriving to the United States is also “really hurting” farmers.

Despite all the economic benefits immigrants contribute, this administration has chosen to spend astonishing sums on harming them – approximately $170 billion over the next four years – that could be far better used to strengthen and support our communities, not break them apart. $170 billion would fund a paid family and medical leave program or a universal preschool program for almost a decade. Or it could clear the backlog of all needed infrastructure improvements to our country’s public transit systems, twice.

Health

In addition to devastating our economy, mass deportations are harming our nation’s health. The administration’s brutal immigration agenda will make it more expensive for everyone to get medical care, reduce our health care workforce, increase the burden on hospitals and health care providers, create a chilling effect on patients, and cause significant harm to people’s mental and physical health.

More than one million immigrants work in essential health care jobs in the United States, and one-third of them are undocumented. In some states, immigrants comprise one-third of all health care sector workers. The Trump administration is stripping more than one million TPS holders of their immigration status this year, 50,000 of whom work in health care. Half a million immigrants with humanitarian parole have also had their status terminated. The administration’s actions to strip people of lawful status will shrink the health care workforce, causing additional strain to an already overburdened system. Our population is aging at an unprecedent rate, and within the next five years, 20 percent of the country’s residents will be of retirement age. Studies show that our health care system is not prepared for the demands of caring for this population.

We are already seeing the harm unfolding across our health care sector. Long-term care providers have indicated they will need to increase costs for residents due to labor shortages, given that immigrants comprise 28 percent of the direct care workforce for long-term care. Fifty percent of nursing homes in the United States have reported that they have had to stop accepting residents because they lack the staff to care for them. Families are finding that long-time caretakers, who previously were authorized to work, can long longer provide care to their loved ones. Given the numbers of immigrants that contribute to our health care system, we are losing an essential part of the vital labor force that cares for the people we love.

The mass deportation regime also fails doctors, nurses, and health care workers across the board because of a change to long-standing policy that now allows immigration enforcement in hospitals and other health care facilities. Instead of being able to focus all their attention on improving the health of their patients, these essential workers must now prepare for and respond to ICE presence in their facilities. The public strongly opposes ICE in hospitals, yet the administration continues to defend the practice.

Mass deportations also have an impact on patients, who avoid medical care out of fear, resulting in worse health outcomes. Their failure to seek timely care also increases the burden on hospitals, which were stretched thin before the health care cuts in the 2025 budget bill that are expected to lead to closures of rural hospitals. When people delay or avoid seeking timely medical care, their conditions worsen and ultimately lead to higher costs and poorer outcomes for everyone.

Widespread immigration enforcement also causes dramatic mental and physical health impacts on families and communities experiencing the detention or deportation of a loved one. The results of having a friend, family member, coworker, or other community member detained results in U.S. citizens, particularly children, having greater anxiety, depression, and psychological distress. U.S.-citizen children who are separated from their parents due to detention or deportation often experience adverse behavioral changes; have higher rates of suicidal ideations, alcohol use, and aggression; and exhibit signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Doctors have expressed significant concerns about the long-term physical and mental health consequences on children who experience such fear and uncertainty.

These disruptions don’t just happen to individuals or isolated groups of people; the effects of mass deportation undermine and harm the overall health of entire communities. Republicans and this administration have chosen to allocate more than $170 billion to this violent anti-immigrant apparatus. That money could easily be used to uplift the health of our residents, by covering health care for millions of veterans, hiring one million elementary school teachers, or hiring almost 900,000 nurses.

Society and Safety

The damage this agenda inflicts doesn’t end with jobs, or dollars, or even our collective physical or mental health. Mass deportations erode our civil society, our communities, and our connections to each other. Immigrants make up significant and vital portions of our communities, and ICE raids are quickly becoming the gateway to the entry of destabilizing forces that leave people less safe and erode the social bonds and connections that make our communities vibrant. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Vasquez-Perdomo v. Noem also paves the way for racial profiling during immigration enforcement, which will further erode trust and safety.

In pursuing their anti-immigrant goals, this administration has gone to unprecedented lengths—including occupying two of its largest cities, Los Angeles and D.C. These likely unconstitutional shows of force erode trust in the government, increase fear, and disproportionately target immigrant communities and people of color. In D.C., 61 percent of residents who noticed the presence of additional law enforcement felt less safe with them present. This makes sense, given the large numbers of arrests, increase in racial profiling, and indiscriminate targeting and detention of immigrants. The residents of Los Angeles also learned that the risks and damage to a community after being occupied don’t end if the occupiers leave. The climate of fear and continued ICE raids persist.

Mass deportations undermine our safety and topple the building blocks that create community. Indeed, in places that prioritize welcoming, rather than demonizing, immigrants, studies show a documented decrease in crime. Policies that do not embrace newcomers only erode the safety of our communities. A climate of fear and enforcement can also cause individuals to withdraw from public life more broadly, which harms social growth and communities.

The social connections that are created through participation in community life, including religious institutions, affinity groups, or other clubs, are pivotal to individual and community. In a climate of fear and justified paranoia, trust is eroded—not only in our government, but also among neighbors. Instead of spending billions on tearing our communities apart, the federal government can better fund many of their programs that increase social capital, like partnering with faith-based, local, state and nonprofit organizations to improve community wellbeing.

Investing in People, Not Fear

The Trump administration acts as if it has a blank check to cause any amount of cost, chaos, and harm in the name of its mass deportations agenda. It wants people to believe that mass deportations only hurt undocumented immigrants. But we are all part of the same fabric: family, neighbors, churchgoers, nurses, patients, teachers, and students. The ripple effects of these deportations will be felt for generations, by all of us.

Mass deportations are not just a policy choice. They are an economic mistake, a public health risk, and a threat to the social fabric of our communities. When families are separated and community members are forcibly removed, our economy, health, and communities suffer. The ties that bind us unravel when our government causes untold destruction in its relentless targeting of one group for harm.

This administration has only just begun spending billions of dollars to unleash a violent and hate-filled agenda—money that should be used to build our communities up, not tear them down. Without greater outcry by elected officials, businesses, civic leaders, and the public leading to a change in direction, we may be in for much darker days. Instead of our tax dollars paying for mass deportations, we could be investing in health care, education, housing, and infrastructure that benefit everyone. We must reject fear and division and choose policies that promote dignity, safety, and health for all. Our communities and our country deserve better.