United States President-elect Donald Trump will enter the White House in just a few days, returning to power by promising to declare a national emergency in the country over the immigration issue, which would allow his administration to channel Pentagon resources to address the crisis. However, despite Trump’s team considering using the country’s military bases and aircraft to carry out the promised mass deportations, it will not come close to reaching the numbers he promised.
According to the Pew Research Center, the illegal immigrant population in the US by 2022 amounted to 11 million people, of which more than four million were of Mexican origin. Mexico has long been, and remains, the most common country of birth for illegal immigrants.
The issue of deportations will be toughened, but it will not even come close to reaching the numbers that Trump has promised since carrying out these deportations is very expensive because more police, lawyers, and judges will be needed. In addition to the economic reasons, it would also require a significant restructuring of the immigration system, which seems unlikely to be possible in four years.
Despite this, the next US president will seek to satisfy the desires of his hardline electorate, so it is very likely that during his first 100 days in the White House, a wave of deportations will be undertaken. In this regard, illegal migrants have the right to have their case reviewed, a process that takes a long time. It is not an automatic process as Trump imagines it to be.
Mexico has repeatedly pointed out that Mexicans working in the US represent a very important labour and economic force, not only for Mexico because of remittances but also for the US. The $60 billion in remittances sent to Mexico is less than 20% of what Mexican workers generate with their work in the US. Those without formal documentation in the US pay more than $42 billion in taxes.
Migrants contribute more than $121 billion in total, approximately 8% of the US Gross Domestic Product. Therefore, the deportation of the 11 million undocumented immigrants would be a hard blow to the American economy. Of those 11 million, many work on farms, and the economic burden of leaving farm work and not paying taxes on services would not only be very high for the US, but it would also devastate the local economy.
In this regard, the economic cost of mass deportation could also increase inflation in the US since many things would become more expensive due to the lack of harvesting certain products. In addition, it would represent a blow to consumption. Undoubtedly, investments would decrease because even undocumented migrants invest in different things, including buying houses and cars.
In response to Trump’s threats, the Mexican government launched a consular strategy to support migrant compatriots in the US in case they are affected by mass deportations. This plan seeks to offer legal assistance, verify due process and guarantee consular notification, permanently update anti-immigrant laws and actions, and inform migrants in the event of raids, detentions, or intimidating treatment, among other things.
Likewise, the president of the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex), José Medina Mora de Icaza, reported that the private sector is in a position to provide employment to some 5,000 migrants who are at risk of being deported.
However, Mexico is not prepared to receive the tens of thousands, let alone hundreds of thousands, of compatriots at risk of being deported. Despite the actions that have been taken, including consular actions, no structure coordinates the efforts of the Mexican State to support migrants from the moment they are detained in the US until their possible deportation to Mexico.
Although mass returns are not expected, the Mexican State must seek public policies that help its compatriots resume their lives once they return since they will have to start their lives from scratch again. No specific strategies have yet been defined to assist those who have been living in the US for decades and do not have a support network.
In this way, although returns will undoubtedly occur, they will not be in the numbers that Trump has boasted. Not only is it impossible for Mexico to absorb this huge population, but the US economy would be at risk of collapse, and inflation would skyrocket if this were to occur, which is contrary to the main objective of the Trump administration—the recovery of the ailing American economy.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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