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Senate Democrats concern-monger over possible impact of Trump's deportations on the labor force
Immigrants wait in line near a U.S. Border Patrol field processing center in Texas. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images

Senate Democrats concern-monger over possible impact of Trump's deportations on the labor force

Leftists' pitch for keeping illegal aliens in the country appears to center on keeping them as cheap alternatives to American labor.

Senate Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee issued a report concern-mongering about President-elect Donald Trump's proposed mass deportations, suggesting that by depriving American businesses of cheap, illegally-imported labor, citizens will pay dearly and suffer "severe economic fallout."

Citing estimates from the Peterson Institute for International Economics — which investor Steven Rattner dubbed "the locker room of the Team Globalization and Free Trade cheering squad" in the New York Times — the Democratic report released last week by JEC Chairman Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) claimed that the deportation of 8.3 million illegal aliens would leave the GDP 7.4% lower and employment 7.0% lower by 2028.

The Peterson Institute suggested earlier this year that businesses unable to draw from the illegal alien labor pool would invest less in new business formation and invest their capital in industries that rely less upon low-skilled labor. In addition to reducing capital tax revenue to the government, the think tank suggested that fewer illegal aliens would also mean less demand at grocery stores, leasing offices, and other services.

Extra to relying on speculation from the globalist outfit, Heinrich and his fellow travelers also leaned on an October report from the American Immigration Council — an activist group committed to expanding immigration to the United States that frequently parrots Southern Poverty Law Center talking points. The AIC concern-mongered that deportations might cause "significant labor shocks across multiple key industries."

Having apparently internalized the Peterson Institute and AIC's assumptions, and insisting that "immigrants do not take jobs from U.S.-born workers or bring down wages for similarly-skilled workers," the Senate Democrats stated in their report, "Mass deportations would reduce economic growth, shrink the labor force, cost U.S.-born workers their jobs, raise costs for nearly all Americans, and risk igniting inflation."

The report neglected to mention the financial burden of illegal aliens on the American taxpayer and citizen services.

'In terms of gross expenditures due to illegal immigration, we estimate that Americans pay $182 billion.'

Blaze News previously reported that the estimated annual cost to house known gotaways and illegal aliens released into the country under Biden's watch was $451 billion.

The House Committee on Homeland Security indicated in a November 2023 report that "for every one million parolees released into the United States on [Department of Homeland Security Alejandro] Mayorkas' watch, the cost in federal welfare benefits that will be incurred could total $3 billion annually, with those costs starting to kick in January 2026."

The Center for Immigration Studies concluded in a December 2023 report that an estimated 59.4% of households headed by illegal aliens drew on at least one major taxpayer-funded welfare support. Illegal aliens reportedly use every welfare program at "statistically significant higher rates than the U.S.-born, except for [Supplemental Security Income], [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families], and housing."

The Federation for American Immigration Reform reported last year that at the start of 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration for the U.S. was at least $150.7 billion — $1,156 per year for every American taxpayer or $957 after factoring in taxes paid of illegal aliens. Julie Kirchner, the executive director of FAIR, testified to Congress in May that the $150.7 billion figure was a "conservative one" representing a net cost.

"In terms of gross expenditures due to illegal immigration, we estimate that Americans pay $182 billion. Approximately $31 billion is received from illegal aliens in taxes, only 17 percent of the costs they create," said Kirchner. "The fiscal burden of illegal immigration is due to several factors. First, because illegal aliens usually have low incomes, those who do pay taxes pay little, if anything. Second, illegal aliens incur significant costs to the taxpayer on a daily basis, because public services such as policing, K-12 education, emergency services, etc., are provided universally. Further, due to loose eligibility criteria — intentional or otherwise — many illegal aliens receive benefits from federal, state, and local jurisdictions, despite the fact that they have no legal status."

The AIC report cited by Senate Democrats claimed that "it would take over ten years, and the building of hundreds to thousands of new detention facilities, to arrest, detain, process, and remove all 13.3 million targeted immigrants — even assuming that 20 percent of that population would depart voluntarily during any multi-year mass deportation effort. The total cost over 10.6 years (assuming an annual inflation rate of 2.5 percent) would be $967.9 billion."

FAIR's estimate of the net annual cost of illegal immigration projected, unchanged, over the same period, would amount to $1.59 trillion dollars.

Apparently happy to gloss over the cost of illegal aliens and illegal immigration, JEC Democrats claimed in X, "Trump's mass deportations plans would cause irreparable harm to the economy."

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Joseph MacKinnon

Joseph MacKinnon

Joseph MacKinnon is a staff writer for Blaze News.
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