Austin Kocher, PhD 🌎It's impossible to avoid the economic effects of mass deportation. A new analysis in Choices Magazine breaks down what aggressive enforcement could mean for American workers, farmers, and your grocery bill. 🧵
There are approximately 51.4 million foreign-born individuals in the U.S. Of those, 9.7 million have no legal protections and face the immediate possibility of deportation under current enforcement priorities.
Agriculture is the sector most at risk. USDA data shows that at least 40% of the U.S. crop labor force has been undocumented in each of the last 30 years. This is not a marginal share, we are structurally dependent.
Dairy, meatpacking, poultry, nurseries, and greenhouses are also heavily reliant on undocumented workers. The H-2A guest worker program largely excludes nonseasonal industries like dairy, leaving no easy legal replacement.
The states with the largest undocumented populations (California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia) are also among the top five states for H-2A worker demand. Mass deportations would hit these agricultural regions especially hard.
It's not just direct deportations that reduce labor supply. Research shows that even workers who aren't deported may reduce their hours out of fear of apprehension, an effect economists call "chilling effects" on labor supply.
Attracting domestic workers to farm jobs has proven unrealistic even during periods of high unemployment. The idea that Americans will fill these roles if undocumented workers are removed is not supported by historical evidence.
Mechanization is frequently offered as the solution, but current agricultural technologies are not efficient enough and are financially out of reach for many producers, especially for labor-intensive specialty crops.
If farm labor costs spike sharply, the consequences are straightforward: Americans pay more for domestically grown food, or the U.S. imports more fruits and vegetables from other countries. Neither outcome serves the stated goal of putting America first.
Combined across agriculture, construction, hospitality, and other sectors, mass deportations affecting millions of workers could fuel inflation and reduce GDP, effects felt by every American household, not just immigrant communities.
The data is clear: undocumented workers are deeply embedded in the U.S. economy. Policy decisions that ignore this reality carry real costs.
Read the full analysis here
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/362692/files/cmsarticle_991.pdf
For more: https://austinkocher.substack.com