Donald Trump has been demonizing immigrants - trying to scare U.S. voters into voting for him. And he says he will save the country from those scary immigrants, especially the undocumented ones, with a massive deportation plan. He wants to deport all of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants.
But there is something about that plan that he's not telling voters - its cost to the U.S. economy. The cost would be huge - large enough to wreck the economy.
Just to deport them would require many more immigration officials, detention facilities, and transportation costs. It has been estimated that it would cost at least $88 billion to deport a million immigrants in a year - and he wants to deport ten times that amount. It could amount to nearly a trillion dollars!
And that's not the only cost to the economy. Trump has claimed that these immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans. That's not true. Many industries (like meatpackers and fruit/vegetable growers) depend on these immigrants to survive, because U.S. citizens don't want those low-paying, dirty, and sometimes dangerous jobs.
If immigrant-dependent industries lose those workers, it is very unlikely that would be unable to replace them. That would results in shortages, and those shortages would create muck higher prices. Inflation would go through the roof!
And then we come to taxes. The Nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that those immigrants pay about $96.7 billion in taxes each year. Someone would have to make up for this tax loss. It won't be the rich, because Trump wants to give them more huge tax cuts. It will be middle and working class families.
The U.S. needs these immigrant workers. They have helped this nation to have a better economy than any other nation. And that economy would be devastated by Trump crazy and massively expensive plan.
