New 桃子视频and AFL-CIO Report Shows Deportations Lower Wages and Raise Costs for America鈥檚 Workers
WASHINGTON 鈥 The 桃子视频 and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) today released a new report, Citizenship and the Affordability Agenda: A Path to Better Jobs, Higher Wages, and Prosperity for All, detailing how the mass deportation agenda is exacerbating the affordability crisis by disrupting critical industries, eliminating jobs, weakening workplace protections, and driving up costs for working families. The findings come as communities continue to suffer the impact of mass de-legalization, record levels of immigration arrests and rebound from the economic toll of militarized enforcement operations like Minnesota鈥檚 鈥淥peration Metro Surge."
The report finds that a broad path to citizenship would stabilize jobs and prices across the construction, hospitality, and care industries that families depend on while raising wages for all American workers. It also examines how Congress has committed at least $240 billion to immigration enforcement, while cutting funding for programs that help families afford food and health care, including SNAP, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act subsidies 鈥 and in some cases allowing them to expire.
鈥淒eportations make workers poorer and more vulnerable to exploitation by employers,鈥 said Naureen Shah, director of government affairs, equality division at the ACLU. 鈥淲hen ICE continuously raids a community, everyone pays for it 鈥 in lost jobs higher prices and damaged businesses. The only immigration agenda that actually improves affordability is one that creates a broad path to citizenship.鈥
鈥淲orking people are paying the price for an immigration system that is destabilizing entire industries and communities and making it easier to exploit workers,鈥 said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. 鈥淎s this report demonstrates, a broad pathway to citizenship for all would raise wages, create more and better jobs, and strengthen our economy in ways that help all of us. It鈥檚 past time to give millions of working people and their families the stability they deserve, and we call on Congress to make citizenship a top priority. Working people know that it鈥檚 not an immigrant that stands between them and a good job鈥攊t鈥檚 the billionaires鈥攁nd it鈥檚 time our laws reflect that.
Among the report鈥檚 key findings: Immigration enforcement enables workplace exploitation. The federal government now spends 91 times more on immigration enforcement than on labor-standards enforcement, which leaves workplaces more dangerous and enables employers to violate wage, safety, and overtime laws while crushing worker organizing. More than a quarter of workers in low-wage industries report minimum-wage violations. While these abuses are highest among immigrant workers, they are widespread enough to suppress pay and standards for all workers in those industries, regardless of immigration status.
Immigration raids stunt business activity and revenue creation. Immigration raids and enforcement surges have terrified people from going to work, shopping, dining out, and participating in their communities. The report cites an estimated 8.1 billion fewer visits to businesses and between $3 billion and $14 billion in lost annual spending. For example, Minnesota businesses lost $10鈥$20 million a week during and after 鈥淥peration Metro Surge.鈥
Mass deportation eliminates jobs held by U.S. citizens. The Economic Policy Institute projects continued pursuit of the administration鈥檚 deportation agenda could eliminate nearly 6 million jobs, almost half of which are currently held by U.S. citizens.
Stripping workers鈥 legal immigration status is worsening the affordability crisis. The Trump administration鈥檚 mass 鈥渄e-documentation鈥 campaign has stopped work authorization from nearly 2 million people, disrupting key industries like construction and hospitality.
A broad path to citizenship would create jobs and raise wages. Creating a path to citizenship would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and substantially raise wages for every American worker= by removing immigration status as a tool employers use to suppress pay and silence workers.
This report, published in partnership with the AFL-CIO, is the third in the ACLU鈥檚 affirmative vision series, in which policy and legal experts explore how the Trump administration鈥檚 immigration agenda has harmed communities nationwide, undermined our democracy, and wreaked havoc on key industries and weakened the American workforce. The series will also outline steps that members of Congress, as well as state and local policymakers, can take to reform the U.S. immigration system and inoculate against future attacks on our rights and safety.
You can read the full report here: /publications/citizenship-and-the-affordability-agenda-a-path-to-better-jobs-higher-wages-and-prosperity-for-all