The most consequential immigration - and economic - issue of the 2024 campaign

It’s been nearly a decade since Donald Trump launched his first presidential run by slandering mexicans as criminals and rapists. Throughout his years as candidate and president, anti-immigrant lies and animosity have been one of his few points of consistency. It’s therefore easy to become desensitized to Trump’s nativism and its consequences or to fail to appreciate why the latest version of Trump’s xenophobia and his pledged second term agenda should raise alarm bells among all Americans, immigrants or not.

For all the promised talk of “unity” at the Republican National Convention, the only unifying theme seemed to be anti-immigrant ugliness. While we expected much of this, the spectacle we witnessed was beyond the pale. From the lurid portrayal of immigrants as criminals to the use of dangerous “invasion” and “replacement” rhetoric to the thousands of signs touting ‘ Mass Deportation Now!’ and attendees’ chants of ‘ send them back!, it’s clear the 2024 Republican Party has fully embraced a brand of nativism and nationalism that strikes at the heart of who we are and threatens our vital national interests.

What a sad reflection that the Republican Party has moved from Abraham Lincoln, who said immigration was a ‘source of national wealth and strength’ and Ronald Reagan, who called for his ‘city on the hill’ to be ‘open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here,’ to Donald Trump, who says immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ and whose 2024 RNC speech pledged the largest deportation operation in American history - including the mass purge, mass roundup and mass detention of long-settled immigrants, such as Dreamers and those in mixed status American families.

For anyone thinking this is just political messaging or only signs and rally chants that Republicans won't really push for, RNC week should serve as a wake-up call. Their anti-immigrant ugliness and the mass deportation agenda are at the top of their new party platform and they are preparing for implementation.

Trump’s mass deportation plan is the most consequential immigration - and economic - issue of the 2024 campaign. It would involve deploying red state National Guard troops in blue state communities and mass detention camps run by the military. And it wouldn’t just be targeted at recent migrants who have been a political flashpoint, but also on long-settled immigrants. As Former ICE Director Tom Homan stated, “ no one should be off the table” and Trump himself noted: “you’ll get rid of 10 really bad ones. And one really beautiful mother … it’s always gonna be tough.” There is no hyperbole, they are not hiding the ball, they are publicly outlining and explaining their plans to deport moms and everyone else.

The economic toll of implementing this plan on major U.S. industries would be vast, and hit every American household regardless of immigration status. An estimate presented by the Peterson Institute for International Economics finds mass deportations would “reduce real GDP by 12 percent if 7.5 million workers were deported” and “by 2.1 percent if 1.3 million were deported … Both scenarios would ignite serious inflation.” Robert Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, came to similar conclusions, assessing it would “inflict misery on a mass level and major costs for taxpayers and the economy … [bringing] on a recession while reigniting inflation.”

Yet as bad as the potential economic impact would be, the real costs and consequences of mass deportations aren’t captured through dollars and cents. It’s about our friends and our neighbors, family members and co-workers, classmates and - yes - teachers. It’s about the type of nation we have been, and we aspire to be.

Despite the gleeful xenophobia at the RNC, the vast majority of Americans don’t share these views and strongly prefer Dreamers and long-settled immigrants to become U.S. citizens instead of targets for deportation.

What’s at stake this November is fundamentally different visions for America and our future. Immigration is central to this distinction. Our immigration history isn’t an easy story of linear progress or the simplified phrasing of “a nation of immigrants.” Yet, it has and it has always been part of our DNA. America is simply not the same without it and it won’t be better off without it.

Ultimately, we need to manage migration, not suppress it. We need a functional immigration system that is consistent with our values and serves the needs of our nation. Not the dystopian future that Trump is promising which would rip apart our economy, families, and communities.

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