Expelling Immigrant Workers May Also Send Away the Work They Do

Expelling Immigrant Workers May Also Send Away the Work They Do
Annual interior apprehensions of unauthorized immigrants
by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)*
Annual interior apprehensions of unauthorized
immigrants by agents of Immigration and Customs
Most of what we know about the effect of immigration on American-born workers is based on studies of what happens when immigrants arrive.
The researchers found that employment and wages in states like Arizona, where apprehensions by Immigration
and Customs Enforcement surged, did no better than in states where apprehensions changed little, like Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Even if the Trump administration were to deploy the 10,000 immigration agents it plans to hire across the nation’s fields to detain
and deport farmhands working illegally, farmers are very unlikely to raise wages and improve working conditions to attract American workers instead.
It found that the exclusion of Mexican farmworkers “had little measurable effect on the labor market for domestic
farmworkers.” Instead, growers mechanized some crops and dropped crops that remained labor intensive.