The Democrats - Using Illegal Immigrants as an Electoral Pawn

Immigration has become one of the key hot button issues in the 2024 election cycle, particularly across the southern border of the United States.  For one political party, immigration policy has been a key to the political landscape in the United States as you will see in this posting.

  

Let's start with this graphic from U.S. Customs and Border Protection showing the number of land border encounters along the southwest frontier by month for the past year:

 

In fiscal 2023 (October 2022 to September 2023 inclusive), there were 2,475,669 encounters with immigrants attempting to enter the United States along the southwestern border and, so far the first three months of fiscal 2024, there have been 785,422 encounters, an increase of 66,405 over the previous year.  It is also notable to observe that encounters hit a new record of 302,034 in December 2023.

 

Here is a graphic from the Center for Immigration Studies showing how the population of illegal immigrants has changed over the Obama, Trump and Biden Administrations:

 

 

Back in April 2013, this report appeared on the Center for American Progress website:

 

 

As background and for those of you who aren't aware of the Center for American Progress, it claims to be "...an independent, nonpartisan policy institute that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. Our aim is not just to change the conversation, but to change the country."

 

This liberal-leaning think tank was founded by the well-known Democrat, John Podesta, in 2003.  Podesta was the White House Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton and Chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign so it is very clear that he leans very strongly to the Democratic side of the spectrum.

The report opens with this (my bolds):

 

"In the wake of the overwhelming Latino and Asian American support for President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election—support that was critical to his re-election—the political winds on immigration have shifted significantly to favor immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship for the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants living in our country. A full 71 percent of Latino voters and 73 percent of Asian American voters supported the president in the election, and poll after poll illustrates that these groups strongly opposed the “self-deportation” policies of Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and instead supported President Obama’s immigration-reform efforts. Changing demographics, especially the rapid growth of the Latino population and their power as voters, ensured that key swing states such as Florida, Colorado, and Nevada voted for the president."

 

Here is a quote from Marco Rubio (R-FL) that is used in the report as a reason why immigration forms a key part of electoral victory in America:

 

“It’s really hard to get people to listen to you on economic growth, on tax rates, on health care, if they think you want to deport their grandmother.”

 

The report clearly notes that the Democrats need the Latino vote to keep them in office, thus, promoting a pro-immigration stance was/is/would be a key tool for ensuring electoral victory in the future.  

 

Here is a graphic from the report showing how the estimated number of Latino voters is projected to increase in 12 states when comparing the 2014 midterm election to the 2016 presidential election:

 

The authors of the report examined the relationship between the increase in the growth of the Hispanic community in Florida, Colorado, Nevada and Virginia and how this growing population supported President Obama in 2012.  They also looked to the future, laying claim to short-term future wins in Arizona and North Carolina and long-term wins in Georgia and Texas all because of the Hispanic demographic shift.

 

The report closes with this:

 

"Even leaving California out of the picture, the states analyzed in this issue brief comprise 137 electoral votes. In 2012 Democrats won 332 electoral votes to the Republicans’ 206, but if Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia were to shift Democratic, that would bring the grand total of electoral votes to 412—an insurmountable margin.

 

Whether these states flip from red to blue is an open question. But two things are abundantly clear: In each of these states, voters of color, particularly Latino voters, are becoming an ever-larger share of the total voting population. These voters care deeply about how both parties talk about immigration, and use it as a litmus test for how candidates from either party feel about their communities as a whole. In fact, immigration reform has become the number one political issue for Latino voters. The voters have spoken, and the message is clear: Getting right on immigration and getting behind real and enduring immigration reform that contains a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in our country is the only way to maintain electoral strength in the future."

 

It's pretty clear that the Democratic Party believes that illegal immigrants can be used as a pawn.  In the opinion of their experts, a relaxed immigration policy will lead to electoral wins which may, in part, explain their current reluctance to act on the crisis along the southwest frontier of the United States.  What the Biden Administration seems to be failing to grasp is that today's illegal immigrants are no longer mainly Latino, in fact, they represent nations from Asia, Europe and sub-Saharan Africa who may not share the political views of earlier unauthorized immigrants.

The Unintended Consequences of Deporting Unauthorized Immigrants

Updated April 2017

The moves by the Trump Administration to make almost all undocumented/unauthorized immigrants subject to deportation could have an unintended impact on the United States economy.  In this posting, I want to take a brief look at how many unauthorized immigrants there are living in the United States, what industries they work in and the economic impact of removing them all from American soil. 

According to a study by Pew Research, the number of unauthorized immigrants peaked at 12.2 million in 2007, falling back to the 2014 level of 11.1 as shown here:

This accounts for roughly 3.5 percent of the U.S. population, down from 4 percent in 2007.

Obviously, all of these unauthorized immigrants are not in the workforce.  Here is a graphic showing the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. labour force since 1995:

In 2014, approximately 5 percent of the total workforce consisted of unauthorized workers, down from 5.4 percent in 2007.  Interestingly, in 2014, about two-thirds of the unauthorized adult immigrants had been in the United States for at least ten years with only 14 percent living in the U.S. for five years or less.  As well, in 2014, unauthorized adult immigrants had been living in the United States for a median of 13.6 years.

Unauthorized immigrants tend to make up a higher share of the workforce in certain occupations as shown on this graphic:

Here is a detailed table showing the total size of the workforce for major occupation groups, breaking the total into the number of U.S.-born, lawful immigrants and unauthorized immigrants:

As you can see on the bottom part of the table, certain occupations have an over-representation of unauthorized immigrants compared to U.S.-born workers; only in construction and farming jobs do unauthorized immigrant workers outnumber lawful immigrant workers.  As well, unauthorized immigrants were over-represented in production jobs including manufacturing, food processing and textile manufacturing were they comprised 9 percent of the total workforce.

Now, let's look at the economic impact of unauthorized immigrants on the U.S. economy.  According to a study by the Center for American Progress, the average annual nationwide loss in GDP if all unauthorized workers were removed from the United States would be $434.4 billion.  Here is a table showing the financial losses by industry over both the short- and long-term:

Here is a table showing the reduction in GDP contribution for each industrial sector over both the short- and long-term:

The economic impact of a mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants would grow over time as shown here:

If all unauthorized immigrants were deported, over the period from 2017 to 2026, the cumulative reduction in GDP would total $4.749 trillion or 2.0 percent of GDP.

As we can see, there is going to be a significant economic impact to the complete removal of all unauthorized immigrants from the United States.  In addition to the reduction in the size of the economy, there will be a significant cost to both execute and enforce a policy that sees the removal of over 11 million individuals from the United States.  A 2016 study by Ben Gitis at the American Action Forum found that it would take at least 20 years to remove all unauthorized immigrants from the United States at a cost of between $400 billion and $600 billion.

Obviously, the issue of unauthorized immigrants is far more complex than it appears on the surface and the implementation of mass deportations could have significant unintended consequences on the U.S. economy.  With weak economic growth levels since the end of the Great Recession and mounting federal debt levels, Americans will have to carefully examine the pros and cons of removing all undocumented workers from American soil.

The High Cost of Enforcing Current Immigration Laws

Updated January 2017

With Donald Trump and his anti-immigration mantra now occupying the Oval Office, an analysis by the American Action Forum (AAF) looks at the budgetary and economic costs that addressing illegal immigration would place on the U.S. economy.  With an estimated 11.2 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, as you will see, the costs are extremely high.  We will divide this posting into two parts; first looking at the budgetary cost to taxpayers associated with the enforcement of current immigration laws and then look at the costs to the economy should undocumented immigrants be deported.  Please note that all cost estimates are in 2013 dollars; the impact of inflation on these costs will push them significantly higher over the 20 year period necessary to implement the enforcement of current immigration laws.

1.) The Budgetary Cost of Enforcing Current Immigration Laws:  As I noted above, according to Pew, there are approximately 11.2 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, making up 3.5 percent of the U.S. population and 26 percent of foreign-born Americans.  About 66 percent of these undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States for at least 10 years and almost half were parents of minor children as shown here:

In 2012, 6.9 percent of all pre-college aged students had at least one undocumented immigrant parent.  On the employment front, as many as 8.1 million of these undocumented immigrants or 5.1 percent of the total labour force were either working or looking for work in 2012.

Many Americans, politicians and aspiring politicians among them, unequivocally state that the United States needs to fully enforce current immigration law which would ultimately lead to the deportation of all 11.2 million undocumented immigrants.  Assuming that 20 percent would leave the United States on a voluntary basis, the remaining 80 percent would have to be forcibly removed.  To help us better understand the budgetary costs of such enforcement, AAF has made two key assumptions:

a.) As I noted above, 20 percent would leave voluntarily including the 15 percent of undocumented adult immigrants who have been in the United States for less than 5 years.  This would leave approximately 8.96 million immigrants who would have to be forcibly deported.

b.) The Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the federal agency with the primary responsibility of deporting illegal immigrants.  In 2013, ICE deported 330,651 unlawful immigrants and Ice has stated that it currently only has the capacity to remove a maximum of 400,000 immigrants on an annual basis.  This means that it would take nearly 20 years to deport all 8.96 million remaining undocumented immigrants, a situation that would change should funding levels increase substantially.

There are four stages necessary to enforce current immigration law.  Here is a summary of each stage and its associated costs:

a.) Apprehension costs:  These included the costs of criminal arrests where ICE agents pursue and arrest undocumented immigrants as well as the cost of administrative arrests where undocumented immigrants are arrested based on another violation (i.e. a traffic violation) after which ICE agents are contacted.  In fiscal 2013, administrative arrests accounted for the vast majority of the total arrests made by ICE, totalling 241,694 out of the 330,651.  Based on the high percentage of less expensive (to ICE) cost of administrative arrests, on average, in 2013, ICE's apprehension costs averaged $4,856 per arrest.  In 2013, ICE used its own investigators and Fugitive Operations Teams to arrest a further 43,218 immigrants at an average cost of $27,155 per immigrant.  Using these figures, AAF concludes that:

- ICE would need $43.5 billion to make a majority of the 8.96 million arrests administratively.

- ICE would need $243.3 billion to make a majority of the 896 million arrests criminally.

b.) Detention costs:  ICE is required to detain undocumented immigrants until their fate is determined by a judge.  In fiscal 2013, ICE had 34,000 bed spaces and immigrants were detained by ICE for an average of 33.5 days prior to their court date.  It cost ICE an average of $118.88 per day to detain a single undocumented immigrant; carrying this forward, it would cost about $35.7 billion to detain all 8.96 million undocumented immigrants over the next 20 years.

c.) Legal costs: Once ICE detains undocumented immigrants, it must legally process them.  It costs the Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review an average of $1,495 to legally process each undocumented immigrant in 2013; as a result, it would cost $13.4 billion to legally process all 8.96 million undocumented immigrants.

d.) Transportation costs: Once undocumented immigrants have been apprehended, detained and legally processed, ICE must transport them back to their country of origin.  In 2012, 52.4 percent were from Mexico, 15.2 percent were from Central America, 12.4 percent were from Asia and 6.3 percent were from South America.  In 2013, 9.6 percent of departing undocumented immigrants left on their own without any financial assistance from ICE.  This would leave about 8.1 million undocumented immigrants that would require transportation; using the 2013 average of $1,400, it would cost $11.3 billion to transport 8.1 million undocumented immigrants.

If we sum up the costs for each stage of enforcement, it would cost U.S. taxpayers between $103.9 and $303.7 billion to remove 8.96 million undocumented immigrants.

That's not all.  In order to keep future undocumented immigrants from entering the United States while the system is trying to deport those currently living in America, increased enforcement would be required.  AAF estimates that to budgets for both ICE and the Customs and Border Protection would have to rise from their total of $15.8 billion in fiscal 2013, however, just using the 2013 budgetary numbers, the federal government would have to spend $316 billion over the next 20 years to keep new undocumented immigrants from crossing the American border.

2.) The Economic Costs of Enforcing Current Immigration Laws:   

As I noted above, about 5.1 percent of the U.S. workforce is undocumented immigrants.  In some industries, they form a substantial portion of overall workers as shown on this graphic from Pew:

By removing all undocumented immigrants, the total size of the labor force would shrink by 11 million workers by 2034.  As a result, over the first ten years, average economic growth would shrink by 0.5 percent annually and, in 20 years, the economy would be 5.7 percent smaller than it would have been had the government not removed all undocumented workers.  This suggests that real GDP in 2034 would be $1.6 trillion lower than the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) baseline estimates.  On top of the shrinking GDP, removing undocumented immigrants would have a negative impact on federal tax revenues.  Estimates from the CBO and the Social Security Administration show that 50 percent of undocumented immigrants pay federal taxes and are not users of social services meaning that their departure would result in a let loss of federal revenue.  The Bipartisan Policy Center calculates that removing all undocumented immigrants would result in a deficit increase of $800 billion over the next 20 years.

To summarize, here is a table showing the total costs of enforcing America's current immigration laws:

Obviously, from a cost standpoint, the ongoing debate about undocumented immigrants in the United States is far from clear cut.  The costs to taxpayers and the negative impact on the economy and the federal budgetary balance are substantial and would suggest that decision-makers in the Trump Administration need to carefully consider all of the repercussions of implementing a harsher immigration climate in the United States.