GSN March 2016 Digital Edition

somehow making the Mexican gov-
the proposed banning of all Muslim
These and the other immigrationrelated
proposals of the Trump
campaign are as impractical as they
are inhumane.
Moreover, they take no account
of the economic damage that policies
of this kind would inflict upon
mass deportation plan. According
to the conservative American Action
Forum:
“… it will cost $100-$300 billion
to implement, and require a minimum
of 17,296 chartered flights
and 30,701 chartered bus trips each
year. Additionally, the federal government
would need to increase
federal immigration apprehension
personnel from 4,844 to 90,582; increase
immigration courts from 58
to 1,316; and increase the number
of federal attorneys from 1,430 to
32,445. Lastly, AAF also found that
nomic
growth by $1 trillion.”
Leaving aside the sheer inhumanity
of the proposal, this is an economic
disaster waiting to happen.
It’s not exactly the kind of policy
prescription you’d expect from a
businessman.
Xenophobic immigration policy
would wreck the U.S. Economy
Continued from page 43
the economic damage wrought by
the expulsion of millions of people
from the country would be massive
and would ripple through a wide
range of industries. As a January 11
“If 11 million immigrants were
rounded up and removed from the
country, many of the jobs they do —
including restaurant, hotel and lowend
construction work — could
go largely unfilled, economists say.
That would create a large and immediate
hit to gross domestic product
growth and the effects would
ripple out to companies that supply
goods and services to all those businesses.
There would also be 11 million
fewer people consuming goods
and services, further driving down
economic activity.”
According to a 2015 report from
the conservative American Action
Forum, the effort to actually remove
States, and prevent any new unauthorized
immigrants from coming
in their place, would be enormous:
“Depending on how the government
conducts its apprehensions, it
would need to spend $100 billion to
$300 billion arresting and removing
all undocumented immigrants residing
in the country, a process that
55
we estimate would take 20 years. In
addition, to prevent any new undocumented
immigrants going forward,
the government would at a
minimum have to maintain current
immigration enforcement levels.
This results in an additional $315
billion in continuing enforcement
costs over that time period.”
On top of that would be the
broader economic impact of losing
so many workers and consumers:
“Removing all undocumented
immigrants would cause the labor
force to shrink by 6.4 percent, which
translates to a loss of 11 million
workers. As a result, 20 years from
now the economy would be nearly 6
percent or $1.6 trillion smaller than
it would be if the government did
not remove all undocumented immigrants.
While this impact would
be found throughout the economy,
the agriculture, construction, retail
and hospitality sectors would be especially
strongly affected.”
fective
border wall will waste tens of
billions of dollars. Mass deportation
will result in a smaller labor force,
declining levels of consumer spend-
a recipe for economic catastrophe.
And this is what the Trump/Cruz
approach to immigration heralds