President-Elect Donald Trump confirmed this week that he plans to declare illegal immigration a national emergency. Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, says this would be devastating to the nation’s economy. As David Martin Davies and Kayla Padilla with Texas Public Radio report, Gutierrez is an immigration lawyer. He said he has seen in his practice how critical undocumented labor is and if Trump orders mass deportations American will see a price shock at the grocery store.
But Gutierrez said Trump may still face challenges in carrying out his plan. “It’s my hope that there are plenty of safeguards within the system to be able to stop or slow down some of the things he’s talking about. I mean what he is suggesting will be a complete disaster to the United States economy and I hope the people start to realize that.” Trump said he wants to use the U.S. military to conduct workplace immigration raids. And he has called for ending birthright citizenship for children with undocumented parents.
It is not just Sen. Gutierrez who is sounding the alarm. According to a report issued in October by the American Immigration Council (AIC), the mass deportation of more than 13 million undocumented immigrants in the United States could total more than $315 billion. That same report concluded, “With an unemployment rate averaging under 4.0% since 2022, U.S.-born workers could not fill all the jobs of undocumented workers even if they tried to.” According to their analysis, undocumented immigrants constitute 4.6% of the U.S. employed labor force.
