Skip to main content
Know This Now

Know This Now, July 11, 2025: WSJ, Economic Experts and Industry Leaders Warn Deportations Will Damage U.S. Economy and Hurt Businesses

By July 11, 2025July 15th, 2025No Comments

Top News: WSJ, Economic Experts and Industry Leaders Warn Deportations Will Damage U.S. Economy and Hurt Businesses

  • “Mass deportation of productive employees will drain economic growth and make it harder for Mr. Trump to deliver a return to the prosperity of his pre-Covid first term,” wrote the Wall Street Journal editorial board this week. The WSJ cites a new economic paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which warns “sharp tightening of immigration policies has the potential to substantially reduce output growth.”“Mr. Trump said last week that the White House is drawing up a plan to let farmers vouch for longtime reliable alien employees. Farmers and the economy need them,” the WSJ wrote.
    The data referenced from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas shows potential decline in GDP growth based on several immigration policy scenarios:

Screenshot

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
NOTE: Estimates are shown in percentage points relative to the counterfactual benchmark of GDP growth or PCE inflation implied by the Congressional Budget Office’s immigration projection published in January 2025

  • Another WSJ editorial board editorial last week also highlighted the potential negative impact of mass deportation on businesses across the U.S.

    They argued that small businesses are already struggling to find workers.
    “Focus on the criminals, and leave everyone else alone to provide for their families.”
    WSJ wrote that the president’s push for a “temporary pass” for essential workers on farms and in hotels is “right on moral and economic grounds.”
  • In the Washington Post, former Trump campaign senior economic advisor Stephen Moore and Richard Vedder, an economics professor emeritus at Ohio University, wrote that for President Trump to achieve his goals of “3 percent economic growth, increasing wages and lowering federal budget deficits,” he will need a growing labor force of willing workers, and that will need to include foreign-born workers.“Economy-wide, there is no evidence that natives lose jobs because of immigrants,” said the two experts, who have teamed up at the nonprofit Unleash Prosperity.

  •  On NPR, Steve Obert, executive director of Indiana Dairy Producers and an ABIC member, agreed that Americans are not competing for the agriculture jobs taken by immigrants.“It is very difficult to find people and as our culture and society has changed, we want our kids to go to college and get more professional careers,” he said.

    With the U.S. facing a shrinking labor supply due to lower birth rates and baby boomer retirements, there’s a growing need to bring in workers to maintain domestic food production, Obert said.“Do we want to import our food, or do we want to bring in labor to produce it right here?” he said.
  • Politico reported that businesses across the country are already struggling to replace workers following recent administration actions that have removed critical legal and undocumented immigrants from the labor force.
    Many cattle ranchers in Teagarden’s organization are immigrants and either they, or their family members, feel threatened by the administration’s immigration policies. The result is ranches left in limbo, not knowing who will show up for work, leaving them to ask “Am I going to have enough crew around tomorrow to get the cows milked and cows fed and everything done?” he said.
  • In the Financial Times, the Chief Investment Strategist at Charles Schwab, Liz Ann Sonders, wrote that U.S. immigration shifts could have a “profound effect” on the economy, disrupting the labor force and raising prices. “Fewer workers in logistics, food processing and manufacturing raise input costs throughout the supply chain,” she wrote. She flagged that the economic disruptions will be felt nationwide, but “regional impacts are even starker” in states like California, Texas and Florida that rely heavily on immigrant workers.

More News Briefing

President Again Pledges Relief for Farmers, Floats “Temporary Pass,” But Messaging Shifts Continue to Create Confusion

President Trump reiterated his desire to find a path for farmers to keep their trusted workers again last week, saying he is going to “put the farmers in charge” on the issue of deporting agricultural workers who are in the country illegally.

“We’re finding the criminals, the murderers, the drug dealers,” President Trump said on July 3 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

“If a farmer’s willing to vouch for these people, in some way, Kristi [Noem], I think we’re going to have to just say that’s going to be good, right?” he said. “You know, we’re going to be good with it. Because we don’t want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms. We want the farms to do great like they’re doing right now.”
– President Trump
July 3, 2025

 

At the end of June, President Trump said the administration is working on a ‘temporary pass’ for immigrants in certain industries. Confusion about what that will mean for workers and employers was heightened Tuesday, however, when Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins stated “there will be no amnesty,” during an event at USDA.

“The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way, and we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation.”
– Agriculture Secretary Rollins
July 8, 2025

When asked about Rollins’ remarks later that day, President Trump said:

“We got to give the farmers the people they need, but we’re not talking amnesty.”
– President Trump
July 8, 2025


Megabill Passes, Clears the Way for Administration’s Immigration Agenda 

Congress passed the GOP’s budget bill just before July 4, which includes investing nearly $170 billion in Trump’s deportation agenda, with the goal of deporting 1 million undocumented immigrants this year. The increase in funding for ICE gives it more funding than any other federal law enforcement agency.

The increase means by 2028, effectively 80 percent of all federal law enforcement dollars will go to immigration enforcement.

Just 24 percent of Americans approve of the plan to spend $45 billion on new detention resources for ICE, with 61 percent opposing it, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted in early June.

U.S. to Revoke Temporary Protected Status for 70,000 Immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua

The Trump administration announced it will end TPS for immigrants from Honduras and Nicaragua by early September, putting them at risk of deportation unless they have other legal status. Migrants from those countries had been covered under TPS since the 90s, so many have lived in the U.S. for decades.

The Trump administration has already terminated TPS for about 350,000 Venezuelans, 500,000 Haitians, more than 160,000 Ukrainians, and thousands of people from Afghanistan, Nepal and Cameroon.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, spoke out recently on the safety of Haiti, as many Haitians living in Ohio face deportation under the change.

“Haiti is not safe…It’s one of the most dangerous places in the world,” DeWine told the Statehouse News Bureau.

DeWine defended TPS recipients as “hardworking people” who “care about their families.”

Joe Rogan on Worksite ICE Raids: ‘It’s Insane’

Podcaster Joe Rogan criticized the Trump administration’s workplace immigration raids in an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience last week, calling the effort “insane.” Rogan, who endorsed Trump’s reelection, said, “Not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers — just construction workers. Showing up on construction sites, raiding them,” he added, shaking his head. “Gardeners. Like, really?”

Georgia Police Arrest Farmworkers — Then Get Warrants From DHS

In May 2025, Georgia police arrested nearly 20 people in Georgia, claiming they were targeting suspects with child-related warrants. But records show many were stopped for minor offenses like driving without a license, then handed over to immigration only after their arrest.

Tracy Gonzalez, Georgia state director of American Families United, an organization ABIC has partnered with in the past, said that the uptick in local law enforcement activities in collaboration with ICE has pushed communities into hiding.

“Being undocumented in the U.S doesn’t make you a criminal. It’s a civil violation. It’s no different than getting a traffic ticket,” Gonzalez said. “You have hardworking people that deserve a path to citizenship, and it’s time.”

 

Timothy Cardinal Dolan: Immigration Can Be a Unifying Issue

 

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Daily News arguing that immigration can bring us together. “Unless we trace our roots back to Native Americans, we are all kids and grandkids of immigrants,” he wrote.

The archbishop outlines eight reasons why he believes the “national conversation about this important issue and sensitive issue could actually be a boost to the unity and cooperation we urgently need.”

Fights in the Courts

Federal Judge Pauses Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order

A federal judge in New Hampshire temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, issuing a nationwide injunction and allowing time for appeal. The ruling, part of a class action covering affected children, could quickly bring the issue back to the Supreme Court, especially in light of its recent decision limiting nationwide injunctions. The judge declined to include parents in the class.

Supreme Court Blocks Florida Law Criminalizing Undocumented Entry Into State

The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked Florida from enforcing a law that criminalizes entry into the state by undocumented immigrants. The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in February, is on hold while legal challenges proceed. The Court offered no explanation for its decision, and no justices publicly dissented. The law mirrors a similar Texas measure, also currently blocked in court.

Enforcement News

Watch: A Vermont dairy farm was raided. The mixed messages from Washington since then have increased fears.

 

ABIC in the news. . . 

View all recent coverage here