Advocacy in April

In light of Donald Trump’s second entrance back into presidency and so much divide amongst this country, I’ve seen so much fear and anger coming from Latin Americans and immigrants. Trump’s campaigns from his 2016 and 2024 runs have shown a huge agenda to enforce mass deportations and stricter border policy. I think I’ve heard just about everything from “they’re not sending their best” to “they’re animals,” and although it offends me greatly as a first generation Mexican woman for the president to say these things, I also take offense to those who voted for that anti-Latinx agenda.

When trying to justify a “moral reason” to vote for Donald Trump to your Latinx friends, there’s really no way around morality since Trump’s campaign calls to carry out mass deportations, stricter border control, and implementing tariffs in Mexico. It’s like a vote for him is just to confirm the discrimination against Latinx people. I remember hearing former friends even say, “immigrants aren’t the problem, but just do things right to get your papers,” as if they completely understood the process to become a citizen in this flawed country. Now try putting that in the same conversation as, “I just care about the economy.” I then took a second to think about it and question, “do these people understand the correlation between immigration and the economy? The tariffs?” Did we forget about the economic labor growth through immigrants in the Bracero Program in 1942? Did we forget the amount of money that immigrants alone generate for the U.S economy? Do we understand the imminent labor shortage the United States would face if we went forward with mass deportations? Let’s discuss the impact immigrants have on the economy and see if they really are the issue.

Let’s begin with a history lesson dating back to World War II. During the war, the U.S was experiencing a huge labor shortage due to the country’s response to the attack on Pearl Harbor and sending American men to war. Mexico was also suffering their own crisis with a drought causing a huge food shortage. Around this time, many Mexicans were migrating north, creating a huge immigration issue. Mexico and the U.S were facing a huge economic problem under the curtains of the war. This sparked an idea to generate agricultural wealth through work permits given to Mexican citizens seeking to migrate north. This was named the Bracero Program, which lasted until the 1960’s. [Note: Let’s also keep in mind that this was not a very humane program, as workers were hosed down with DDT and living in very small and uncomfortable living spaces. As a result of this, workers grew to develop cancer and liver problems.] This assisted the United States economy greatly while they were able to contribute to the war. This also helped develop Mexican businesses and communities around the country. To summarize this history lesson, immigrants were able to prevent an economic disaster following World War II by contributing to the Bracero Program.

Now, enough of this history lesson. What are immigrants doing now to contribute to the U.S economy? Are they actually working? Or are they committing crimes to earn their money? According to the American Immigration Council, a 2022 report shows that over 46 million people living in the United States are immigrants; 10.7 million being undocumented. The majority of this count is made up by Mexicans by 23.1%, with El Salvador following at 3.1%. If we take a look at a 2024 report made by USAFacts, 19% of the workforce was made up of immigrant workers. That’s roughly about 32 million people. If we do math, it shows that 70% of immigrants contribute to the economy. And where are immigrants contributing? They contribute to everything from agriculture, construction, transportation and general services. So what would happen to those 10.7 million undocumented immigrants if Trump was able to carry out his mass deportation plan? Well for starters, this would require lots of U.S money being spent since he wants to get military and federal agents involved. A large portion of immigrants make up the working class, and half of them are Hispanic. The economy would suffer greatly because they would be spending more money just to deport people who generate nearly the same amount of money it takes to pursue mass deportations. Immigrants generate up to $1.6 trillion for the U.S according to the Council on Foreign Relations. With the money generated from immigrants, their work has opportunity to reduce the federal budget deficit by $897 billion within the next ten years. And ironically coming from current Vice President JD Vance, immigration contributes to “soaring housing costs and exacerbating the affordability crisis,” while research has proven that immigration ties into increased demand in housing. In the language of an economist, immigration is actually beneficial to the economy because of the increased labor force, tax revenue and consumer demand (which explains the housing demand because more income = money to buy a house = higher demand in housing). So to summarize: majority of immigrants contribute HEAVILY to the U.S economy.

Let’s discuss the tariffs, specifically against Mexico. Trump has threatened to raised tariffs up to 25%. Mexico, along with China and Canada, is one of the largest trading partners, and raising tariffs would not benefit the economy in any way. To make matters worse, it looks like Trump is leaning into a tariff war in light of the recent threat to raise tariffs against Colombia if they refused to accept an incoming flight of deported immigrants. Initiating higher tariffs are not seen as a good sign according to economists. Now for those who think this might be a good thing, can we hear the definition of a tariff? No? Okay, well let me explain real quick. A tariff is a tax on a trade, AKA the taxes we pay on products exported from different countries (think the price difference between U.S based goods vs. imported goods from other countries). Now, while tariffs can come with economic benefit, there are also the downsides. With high export tariffs, this could risk producers in countries like Mexico to not produce products. We should also focus on Trump’s main purpose of raising these tariffs, because it wasn’t to benefit the U.S economy; his reason is so that these countries “respect” the United States. In fact, raising tariffs in Mexico is a bad economic decision because it would risk inflation and a slowdown. This means prices on those imports from Mexico would have unpredictable prices (we’ve been serious about these rising egg prices for a reason). This would also include the unpredictability on gas prices and essential products. While it’s understood Trump had made note of lower gas prices during his campaign, Oxford Economics experts state that since Canada exports 60% of oil and gas to the United States, raising their tariffs would cause a large price increase for gas. This would also affect transportation and auto companies heavily as well. So to summarize this topic: tariffs would economically ruin basic necessities for everyone, so enjoy the Avocados from Mexico prices while they’re still $1.50.

I fear that the U.S economy will be the large victim amongst Trump’s agenda to oppress many residents, including the Hispanic community. How many more states and organizations have to file lawsuits against him for pursuing mass deportations and taking away programs that assist, not only immigrants, but the low-income Americans? Spending U.S money on mass deportations will cause the biggest job shortage we’ve seen in a long time. Raising tariffs will result in massive inflation. History has confirmed it. Statistics has confirmed it. Expert economists can confirm it: immigrants impact our economy more than we think.

To my former friends who still care about the economy, did we really think this would be a good idea? You can’t support your economy when the economy relies on a group of people you voted to exile from the country.

Sources:

Boak, Josh, and Christopher Sherman. “Trump’s Tariff Threat Worked on Colombia, but His Plans for Canada and Mexico Carry Higher Stakes.” AP News, 28 Jan. 2025, apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-colombia-a5ee8bc89b7fbb459ee574c002c90df1. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“Immigrants in the United States.” American Immigration Council, map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/national/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.

“Report on the Bracero Program.” The Oregon Legislature, olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Downloads/PublicTestimonyDocument/90329. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.

Roy, Diana. “How Does Immigration Affect the U.S. Economy?” Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org/in-brief/how-does-immigration-affect-us-economy#:~:text=According%20to%20an%20American%20Immigration,which%20such%20data%20is%20available. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.

“Trump on Immigration.” American Civil Liberties Union, 17 Oct. 2024, www.aclu.org/trump-on-immigration. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.

USAFacts Team. “How Many Immigrants Are in the American Workforce?” USAFacts, 12 Aug. 2024, usafacts.org/articles/how-many-immigrants-are-in-the-american-workforce/. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.