I asked a Latina worker at my breakfast place why they were so short of staff. She answered, “They’re scared to leave the house,” but she was afraid to say why.
But I already knew why. President Trump has only one card left to play to preserve his base and the Republican majority in Congress – it’s mass deportation of immigrants. 90 percent of GOP voters are fully on board with Trump’s immigration rampage, only 11 percent of Republicans said Trump has gone too far, and 62 percent of U.S. adults said they support his deportation of immigrants. So, Trump persists in his nationwide mass deportation in the face of the shame and wreckage it inflicts throughout the country.
Start with the damage to America’s food supply. Most economists and politicians acknowledge that a sharp reduction in undocumented workers could have devastating impacts on America’s food supply and farm-belt economies. California’s Central Valley is considered “America’s bread basket.” It supplies a quarter of the nation’s food from its crops and over 350 commodities.
Trump’s choice to deport the 450,000 undocumented farmworkers from California’s agricultural fields has scared “70% of the workers off the fields.” That means 70% of crops are rotting at peak harvest time. One seasoned worker lamented, “If they show up to work, they don’t know if they will ever see their family again.”
A sixth-generation farmer in Ventura County, an area that produces billions of dollars-worth of crops hand-picked by immigrants, said, “Now, whoever gets arrested for any reason gets deported.” He added, “If your crop doesn’t get picked it can go bad in one day. Most farmers here are barely breaking even. I fear this has created a tipping point where many will go bust.”
San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow tried to assure workers, “We just want you guys to know you don’t have to worry about the sheriff’ or the police….” ‘Yet they worry, ‘f you call the cops, they’re gonna deport you,’ which breaks my heart because we’re here to protect people.”
Even Trump conceded that ICE raids on farmworkers were “taking very good, long-time workers away…. with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.” But tragically, pleasing his base seems to be more important to him than feeding Americans.
The damage that Trump’s immigration policies will inflict on all Americans extends way beyond food shortages. It would:
- Reduce America’s work force and its gross domestic product by 4.2 to 6.8 percent.
- Result in a significant reduction in tax revenues received by the U.S. government. In 2022, undocumented immigrant households paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes and contributed $22.6 billion to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare. The loss would require American taxpayers to shoulder the required tax increases.
- Would deprive federal, state, and local governments of billions in local tax contributions.
- Result in labor shocks that cause businesses to compete for employees, which boosts wage inflation in industries such as construction, agriculture and hospitality. Around 14 percent of people employed in the construction industry are undocumented. Removing many of them would disrupt many types of construction from homes to businesses, to hospitals and to essential infrastructure.
- Would exacerbate labor shortages and boost nationwide inflation like it did during Trump’s first administration when Trump froze immigration on our southwestern border.
- Cause hundreds of thousands of American citizens and legal immigrants to lose their jobs as businesses collapse from the shortage of immigrants and inflation.
- Create tremendous economic stress as many of the 5.1 million U.S. child citizens who live with undocumented parents lose their breadwinners.
The damage is unthinkable, but not unthinkable enough for Trump to disappoint his base.
Sadly, Trump’s lies about immigrants are working for him. Last year, 55 percent of Americans told Gallup they supported reducing the number of immigrants in the country, that’s nearly twice as many as in 2020, and it’s the first time since 2005 that a majority felt that way.
Instead of taxing your concentration, I offer 3 very short videos to entertain you and expose Trump’s lies about immigrants: https://chaospolicy.com/?s=immigration, https://chaospolicy.com/trumps-press-conference-on-immigration-policies-part-2/, and https://chaospolicy.com/trumps-press-conference-part-3/
Like you, I’m horrified at Trump’s many sacrifices of Americans well-being to please his base. What might help us understand it is that Trump cannot help himself. He checks all the boxes mental health professionals use to diagnose a sociopath. Sociopaths are irrational, compulsive and act out of anger that is unrelated to the issue at hand. They are incapable of empathy, so they can’t relate to or understand the concerns of others. And they act impulsively without considering the consequences. They can’t experience guilt or remorse so they’re set free to inflict damage to others.
That’s why the burden of stopping Trump lies in electing to Congress Democrats or Republicans with the courage and integrity to defy Donald Trump.
