No. The answer is, No. Not even close.
Set aside the human rights notions that humans have human rights including the right to self-determination and to move from places they view as unsafe to places they view as safe. Just forget that.
Also, forget the overwhelming biblical and faith-based notions of welcoming immigrants and doing unto others as you'd have them do unto you.
Forget human kindness and decency.
The GOP and the "project 2025" types are saying that, given a chance, they will deport ALL undocumented immigrants. That's something north of 10 million people.
But think about it. What are the economic results of suddenly removing/deleting 10 million people from the US economy... from the US workforce? Do we know?
Yes, we do. According to a wide variety of economic experts, the result of such a policy (IF they could pull it off) would be economic disaster for the US economy. The data from experts:
Of those 11.3 million, we estimate that 7 million are workers. What is the economic contribution of these unauthorized workers? What would the nation stand to lose in terms of production and income
if these workers were removed and returned to their home countries?
Mass deportation of 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants would also remove these 7 million workers from the U.S. economy, reducing the total number of U.S. workers by nearly 5 percent.
[They crunch the numbers and...]
The main findings of this report are as follows:
• A policy of mass deportation would immediately reduce the nation’s GDP by 1.4 percent,
and ultimately by 2.6 percent, and reduce cumulative GDP over 10 years by $4.7 trillion.
• Mass deportation would cost the federal government nearly
$900 billion in lost revenue over 10 years.
• Hard-hit industries would see double-digit reductions in their workforces.
https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/10/massdeport1003-summary.pdf
And economist after economist, research after research say the same thing. And it's only reasonable. You can't just delete 5% of the workforce and the income and consumption and tax base that those people represent and expect that it won't harm the economy. Indeed, it will probably harm the "regular US workers" the most (Trump and his level of super-wealthy may well not be impacted significantly, but most of us are not super-wealthy, are we?).
Trump's proposed mass deportations would backfire on US workers
...The immigrants being targeted for removal are the lifeblood of several parts of the US economy. Their deportation will instead prompt US business owners to cut back or start fewer new businesses, in some cases shifting their investments to less labor-intensive technologies and industries, while scaling back production to reflect the loss of consumers for their goods.
Prior episodes of mass deportations and exclusions have occurred at
several moments in US history. Research has shown that, far from
generating economic benefits, their net effect was to reduce employment and earnings for US workers—in the short run and long run.
https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2024/trumps-proposed-mass-deportations-would-backfire-us-workers
I could go on and on. But just read what scholars and economic experts are saying about this very bad idea. Trump's policy change (which he probably can't implement now any more than he did in his first adminstration) would devastate our economy and have widespread negative consequences.
One of the starting points for conservative ideology is reasonably weigh the consequences of an action or policy, and that we should watch out for unintended consequences. Indeed.
3 comments:
Marshal, I've been pretty clear: Because of your tendency to regularly push unsupported and clearly false claims, IF you want to comment here on facts, you must present data to support your claims.
I've presented the links to the research and experts who are saying what they're saying about the costs to the US - and especially, the working class - of deporting all undocumented immigrants. You can read what they say if you want, it's there.
And I'm no expert on the matter (although the point seems obvious on the face of it, just from a rational point of view), so maybe this research is flawed in some way. Maybe it is overlooking something. I don't think so, but again, I'm no expert.
What I DO know is that Marshal is also no expert and you, Marshal, can't just come here and say, nope, nope, nope! They're mistaken. They're LIARS!!! Present data and we can talk about data. OR present opinions but label them clearly as YOUR own opinions, NOT supported by any data, but just your gut feelings.
For instance, you mentioned (with no support) how much undocumented citizens are costing us. By all means, provide some data. How much DO they receive in benefits, for instance? Oh wait, undocumented immigrants are not ELIGIBLE for benefits. Well then, what about all that money that they receive in tax returns? But wait, they aren't eligible for tax return payments. Indeed, they will often be paying taxes through withholding that benefits the rest of us (as well as them) that they can't access.
Speaking of, what about the BILLIONS that undocumented immigrants pay in state and local taxes. It's literally billions of dollars. If we "send them all back" that's a hit to state and local economy of BILLIONS of dollars.
Will you be stepping up to make up the difference?
If you have data, you can present it. But I have experts I'm reading, I don't need your non-expert hunches.
Them's the rules.
It's interesting. I am noting how the comments sections in several of the other blogs I visit have changed, but mine has not, at least not how I see it. Surely they can't be rolling this change out blog-by-blog?
I don't care one way or the other, it's just interesting.
My guess is that the change was triggered at Marshal's when our conversation went over the 200-comment barrier. It seems that ALL of his comment threads are going to use the new (frankly under-powered) comment interface, unfortunately -- but that's only a guess.
About this post, my conclusion is that, if the effectively uniparty political establishment keeps going in a particularly irresponsible direction, they can foul things up so badly that fixing it is going to be painful. Whether it's mass immigration or reckless debt, the problem can go from being a minor infection requiring antibiotics to a gangrenous limb requiring amputation.
That's OBVIOUSLY not an argument to do nothing or to pass the buck for another couple decades.
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