An updated CMS study measures the social and economic costs of mass family separation
New York, NY – The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) has released a new report entitled, Proposed 2024 Mass Deportation Program Would Socially and Economically Devastate American Families, by Matthew Lisiecki and Gerard Apruzzese. In 2017, CMS analyzed the effects of a mass deportation program for undocumented immigrants proposed by then-President Donald Trump. With former president and Republican nominee Trump reintroducing a similar proposal, CMS has conducted a new analysis using the US Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey microdata, the most recent data available. This report highlights the devastation of mass deportation on both undocumented residents and their US citizen and legal noncitizen families and communities, including children.
Some key findings of the updated analysis include:
· 5.8 million US households are home to at least one undocumented resident. Of those, 4.7 million households are home to undocumented residents and US citizens or others with legal status. Therefore, mass deportation threatens to break up nearly 5 million American families.
· Mass deportation would push nearly 10 million US citizens into economic hardship. Median household income for mixed-status households would drop from $75,500 to $39,000 (a drop of over 48 percent).
· Undocumented workers contribute an estimated $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes; their removal from the workforce would have a substantial impact on public finances and local economies.
The report’s co-author, Matthew Lisiecki, summarizes the social and economic outcomes of Trump’s deportation plan: “These findings highlight the family- and household-level consequences of the proposed deportation program, which would ruin lives and damage millions of American families. When combined with the public safety crisis that is certain to result from nationwide search, seizure, and detention activities, we begin to see the breadth and depth of harm inflicted by this proposal.”
CMS Executive Director, Mario Russell, adds, “This Republican plan is designed with one purpose only: to maximize cruelty and the gratuitous suffering of American families, to satisfy the worst instincts of some; it lacks–and does not intend even to offer–common sense immigration policies or a vision for a better America.”
The report, Proposed 2024 Mass Deportation Program Would Socially and Economically Devastate American Families, by Matthew Lisiecki and Gerard Apruzzese, is now available.
For more information, contact Julie Velazquez at jvelazquez@cmsny.org.
The Center for Migration Studies (CMS) is a New York-based educational institute devoted to the study of international migration, to the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, and newcomers. For more information, please visit www.cmsny.org.
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