It feels like 2015 for me this summer, with a presidential election looming and the unrealistic promises on immigration resurrected once again. Americans fed up with perceived chaos at the border are understandably looking for solutions. But as I told the New York Times’ Miriam Jordan, a solution that calls for mass deportations would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, take decades, and cause the economy to shrink.
Nearly 10 years ago at the American Action Forum, my then-colleague Ben Gitis and I estimated a similar proposal would result in $400-600 billion in costs, a 6% drop in the labor force, and over $1 trillion reduction in GDP. With regional and global migration continuing to trend high, a policy such as this would be even more expensive and difficult to successfully implement now. The economic disruption would be profound.
The unlikeliness of this proposal doesn’t make it less intimidating to those personally impacted by it, though. Many of the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants have lived, worked, and paid taxes in the U.S. for decades. Many have American citizen children or spouses.
Americans deserve rational immigration policy, not impossible promises.
