These Industries Could Lose The Most Workers To Deportation

The U.S. could lose millions of workers in construction, agriculture, and bars and restaurants if President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up his campaign of mass deportations.

In his first days in office, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders aimed at deporting immigrants without permanent legal status, starting on a campaign promise to deport “record numbers” of people. Economists said deportations could damage multiple industries, especially if the White House’s campaign accelerates to include significant numbers of the estimated 9 million people who are working in the U.S. without permanent legal status.

Major parts of the economy rely on immigrants for labor. For example, many homebuilders employ immigrants without permanent legal status, and an industry group has warned that mass deportations could slow down construction and raise the price of new homes.

Which Industries Would Be Most Affected By Deportations?

Here are the industries that could be most affected by mass deportations, according to an analysis of Census data by the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit group that works with immigrants.

Trump has argued that workers without permanent legal status are filling positions that U.S. citizens could have otherwise filled, putting downward pressure on wages.

The AIC calculates that there aren’t enough U.S.-born workers to fill all of the jobs in the country. However, at least one economist found mass deportations could drive up wages in affected industries—but those policies could also drive up prices, stoking inflation.

Deportations Could Create An Economic Domino Effect

The effect of deportations could be similar to worker shortages in the hospitality sector after the pandemic, Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics wrote in a commentary. In other words, deportations could spark a replay of the post-pandemic era, when businesses boosted wages to attract scarce workers, and a surge in prices followed.

“Employers in some of these key sectors, including construction, leisure and hospitality, and agriculture, would likely be forced to boost wages to attract workers, renewing upward pressure on inflation, including pressure on home prices and food prices,” she wrote.

Immigration has surged in recent years, with many of the new arrivals lacking permanent legal status. About 3.8 million people entered the U.S. without documentation in the fiscal year 2024, far more than in previous years, Evgeniya Duzhak, a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, estimated in a recent analysis.

Economists, as well as officials at the Fed, have noted the surge of immigration helped reduce pandemic-era worker shortages, helping to cool inflation from the four-decade peak it hit in 2022.