The economic chilling effect of Trump's immigration crackdown [View all]
Source: npr
May 12, 20266:30 AM ET Greg Rosalsky
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Well, we now have data from last year's immigration crackdown. East and a co-author, Elizabeth Cox, recently released a new working paper, "Labor Market Impacts of ICE Activity in Trump 2.0," which analyzes how Trump's beefed up immigration enforcement affected employment, both for immigrants and workers born in the United States. So, did the immigration crackdown help the job prospects of U.S.-born workers? East says no.
" The mass deportations in Trump 2.0 are not helping the labor market overall and not creating more job opportunities for U.S.-born workers," East says. In fact, she and her co-author find evidence that, if anything, the clampdown has hurt the employment prospects of U.S.-born workers, particularly working-class men who work in industries that are heavily reliant on undocumented workers, like construction.
It's more evidence that the labor market isn't really a zero-sum contest, where immigrants and native workers battle over a fixed number of jobs in a kind of labor market Hunger Games, and the newcomers take the jobs of or undercut the people already here. Instead, it adds to a large and growing body of evidence that, actually, immigration helps grow core industries and the overall economy, which creates jobs and has other benefits for native workers. Less of a Hunger Games, and more like… what's the opposite of a Hunger Games… a potluck?
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There's a classic argument against immigration: that immigrants take jobs from U.S.-born workers or drive down wages. But this study — like many before it — suggests the labor market isn't that simple. It suggests that immigrants and native-born workers often don't compete against each other for the exact same jobs.................
Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/05/12/g-s1-121493/the-economic-chilling-effect-of-trumps-immigration-crackdown?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Lots of details in this study if you read it.
" The mass deportations in Trump 2.0 are not helping the labor market overall and not creating more job opportunities for U.S.-born workers," East says.
— (@oceancalm.bsky.social) 2026-05-12T18:39:22.451Z
The economic chilling effect of Trump's immigration crackdown
May 12, 20266:30 AM ET
www.npr.org/sections/pla...
Greg Rosalsky, photographed for NPR, 2 August 2022, in New York, NY. Photo by Mamadi Doumbouya for NPR.
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