According to the PBS Newshour, at the start of 2025 there were about 13.7 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Of those people, about 4 million have some legal protections from deportation. The remain 9.7 million could be deported in theory. However, the United States government doesn’t (yet) have the means to round up and deport millions of people.
Most undocumented immigrants are encountered at the southwestern border and the Biden administration was successful in stopping millions of attempted crossings (both legal and illegal). The Border Patrol process and facilities have been upgraded since 2020 and are more capable of preventing illegal crossings now than at any time in history.
The unauthorized worker population in the United States is virtually stagnant. So as deportations increase it’s highly unlikely that those undocumented workers will be replaced by other undocumented workers. However, as the Trump administration revokes or refuses to renew authorizations for special asylum groups (like Venezuelans and Haitians), deportations will include even more than the current 9.7 undocumented workers.
The ultimate goal behind the deportations strategy may be to increase the Labor Force Participation Rate, which has declined from a peak of 67.1% in 2000 to 62.4% in early 2025. A drop of 4.7% in the labor force participation rate works out to about 12.8 million Americans or legal residents (from a current potential labor force of almost 273 million people).
How Does Replacing Unauthorized Workers Help America?
No one has produced an analysis that connects all the dots. But the theory of increasing the labor force participation rate argues that fewer government subsidies would be needed to support the U.S. population. There were about 7.8 million unauthorized immigrants in 2016 who were 18 years old or older (able to work). At the time they comprised about 5% of the active labor force.
If these workers are replaced by American citizens or legal residents who have been struggling to support themselves, state and federal worker and family aid programs would reduce their expenses by potentially billions of dollars.
Another argument in favor of deportations is that by shrinking the labor force the economy will force employers to pay better compensation to attract more legal workers. So the theory suggests that more higher paying jobs in construction, hospitality, lawn care, and other service industries would help grow the U.S. economy.
How Does Deporting Unauthorized Workers Hurt America?
The economic sectors that depend on unauthorized workers traditional pay lower compensation to those employees. These companies would be forced to raise their compensation and benefits to compete for legal workers. But to cover their increased labor costs they would have to raise prices for their goods and services. The most likely outcome of such inflationary actions would be a decline in total sales volume by product unit and service hour.
In other words, the companies would hire fewer workers. Thus the economy would lose more jobs than it creates, leading to a net loss of economic activity and tax revenues for the states and federal government.
Furthermore, the unauthorized workers who are currently paying taxes also pay into the Social Security and Medicare systems. These workers will never be able to claim benefits. They thus have helped extend the full viability of these programs, which will eventually have to reduce (but not end) benefits payments to retirees, disabled Americans, and survivors because of falling tax revenues. The programs are fundamentally sound. They are funded by payroll taxes and can continue on indefinitely, even if they must reduce benefits over time as the U.S. population ages out of the workforce.
What Are The Consequences Of Deporting Immigrants?
The deportations harm the reputation of the United States and good will of nations around the world. There are also humanitarian costs to the people being deported, as many of them have neither homes nor jobs to return to. Increasing the impoverished populations of other nations – especially in the western hemisphere where most of these immigrants came from – contributes to instability in those nations and throughout the region. American national interests, including national security, will be threatened by that growing instability.
Domestically the cost of deporting millions of people will far exceed current federal resources. Congress will have to authorize substantially larger budgets for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service. The deportation process is also not immediate for most apprehended people. They’ll have to be held in detention until they can have hearings to determine if their deportations are necessary or should be prioritized. They will also be entitled to representation and counseling. The current system is already behind schedule, understaffed, and lacks adequate facilities. Hence, even more budget authorizations by Congress are needed.
Congress was on the verge of passing a bipartisan border bill in 2024 when Donald Trump ordered Republicans in the House of Representatives to drop support for the bill to save his campaign for President. The bill included nearly every demand Republicans had made for 10 years or longer on enhanced border security and expansion of facilities and staff to process immigrants. In the wake of Trump’s action it seems unlikely the Democratic Party will support another similar bill.
Assuming, however, that the logistical demands of the accelerated deportation program can be fulfilled, the jobs left vacant by the deported immigrants are often located far from populations of non-participating American workers. That is, many of the people who are expected to benefit from deportations by re-entering the labor force live in the wrong parts of America. They won’t be able to apply for those jobs.
One industry that would be hit hard is American agriculture. In 2021, about 1/4 of all agricultural workers were unauthorized. The percentage rises to 1/3 in crop production. Farmers and economists alike argue that these workers won’t be replaced by Americans, most of whom live too far away from the farms and are not physically capable of performing the arduous manual labor. And agricultural work is considered skilled labor for which most Americans are untrained and inexperienced.
It’s not clear what employers who formerly depended on deported unauthorized workers will be able to do. In some communities they may be able to attract enough legal workers to continue operations. In some communities they may have to cease operations or leave. The loss of so many jobs will hurt communities that lose these companies.
The net change in authorized employment versus unauthorized employment may turn out to be negative.
Regardless of whether the deported immigrants are all replaced by legal workers, the Social Security and Medicare systems will eventually have to pay even more benefits than currently projected because more Americans will be eligiblle to receive them – or because millions of Americans will receive even higher benefits than they otherwise originally would have.
Conclusion
No one knows for sure what will happen with the deportation program. It faces both legal and logistical challenges. And the cost-benefit analyses will have to be adjusted as new data is collected. It will take economists years to determine what the full impact will be.
It will also take years to deport so many people. Modest estimates suggest that at least 1 million more people will have to be deported per year than are currently deported. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement service is struggling to increase apprehension and deportation numbers.
The Trump administrations’ policies in 2020 and 2025 have been criticized for unnecessary cruelty and violating both U.S. law and international treaties. However, there is broad support among Americans for enforcing immigration laws and expanding resources to fulfill that mission. Regardless of which political party is in power, immigration enforcement is expected to be a major concern for the United States for many years to come.