The idea of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants gained traction during the RNC. Speakers talked about how a second Trump administration will carry out the “largest deportation in history.”
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Republican National Convention wrapped up yesterday with a speech from former President Donald Trump, where he focused largely on immigration.
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DONALD TRUMP: They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from jails. They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums.
SHAPIRO: He promised mass deportations on an unprecedented scale. NPR’s Jasmine Garsd has been looking into what that would mean. Hey, Jasmine.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: President Trump said once again last night that migrants coming to America are criminals. Will you just start with a fact-check on that for us?
GARSD: Well, the Trump campaign has been drumming up anti-immigrant sentiment for months. And more than half of Americans think undocumented immigration is a critical threat. But there’s a lot of data that shows that undocumented immigrants do not commit more crimes. In fact, they commit less. We simply are not in the midst of an immigrant crime wave.
SHAPIRO: So to the promises that Donald Trump made last night, one of the things he said was mass deportations. What would that mean?
GARSD: The Trump campaign has been going really hard on that promise. There’s over 10 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., and the reality is the U.S. doesn’t have the manpower to deport all those people. It would require a massive investment. It would also create a hole in the economy. I spoke to Ron Hetrick. He’s a senior economist at Lightcast, a labor market analytics company. He focuses on immigration, and I asked him what would happen if we deported over 10 million people.
RON HETRICK: Whether it’s building our homes, processing our food, picking our food, you would be literally talking an enormous part of our economy that would kind of be removed, which would probably, you know, drive up prices significantly because we just simply don’t have the workers to replace them.
GARSD: You know, I’ve also spent the last few years hearing from Trump supporters on this issue. A few months ago, while reporting in Central Florida, I met Mark Cunningham (ph). He sells Donald Trump T-shirts. He’s a very vocal supporter of former President Trump. And here’s what he thinks about the mass deportation campaign promise.
MARK CUNNINGHAM: If we didn’t have the immigrant workforce that we have, the hotel and restaurant industry would collapse – literally collapse – not to mention the farm industry.
GARSD: I’ve heard this time and again from Trump supporters who cheer on this idea but acknowledge that, in practice, this would cripple the U.S. economy.
SHAPIRO: And what about undocumented people in the U.S. who have family members who are citizens?
GARSD: An estimated 22 million people in the U.S. lived in a mixed-status family. Immigrants arrive to the U.S., and they spend years – a lifetime here. And they become part of the fabric of U.S. society. So a policy of mass deportations would hurt a lot of Americans, not just undocumented immigrants.
SHAPIRO: NPR’s Jasmine Garsd. Thanks for your reporting.
GARSD: Thank you.
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