The 2024 presidential campaign saw the emergence of “Mass deportation now!” as a rallying cry. This policy will likely cripple key sectors of the U.S. economy by creating severe labor shortages in industries heavily reliant on undocumented workers, such as agriculture and construction.

Throughout his campaign, President Donald Trump pledged mass deportations as part of his border policy. Now that he’s been inaugurated, he is making good on that promise. However, is that what’s best for our country?

For the sake of this argument, let’s put aside the moral debate about the president’s plan to deport millions of immigrants, many of whom have been in this country for at least five years and have built lives and communities here, and look at it from an economic lens.

According to the Pew Research Center, in 2022, undocumented immigrants made up 4.8% of the U.S. workforce. With an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., they comprise roughly 40% of the agricultural workforce. This means undocumented laborers produce a significant portion of the food we consume. Deportation or increased ICE crackdowns could result in 8.3 million people disappearing from the U.S. workforce. This could happen through deportation or by people fleeing to avoid apprehension. A similar situation occurred in Gary, Ind., during the mass Mexican repatriation program carried out by President Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression. Concerns about immigrants taking U.S. jobs led to a mass repatriation effort that deported more than a million people, 60% of whom were U.S. citizens, to Mexico. A similar operation today would devastate the U.S. farming sector.

According to the Brookings Institute, other jobs seen as menial are also dominated by undocumented immigrants. Cooks, construction laborers, roofers, dishwashers, carpenters and a litany of other jobs comprise most of the undocumented workforce. Undocumented immigrants often take less attractive and more dangerous jobs compared to U.S.-born or authorized workers. When President Trump and others argue that undocumented immigrants take jobs from Americans, this claim overlooks the fact that many of these jobs are hazardous or undesirable and are often left unfilled by others.

According to the Center for Migration Studies, three-quarters of a million undocumented immigrants are self-employed, creating businesses that provide jobs for themselves. In addition, 855,000 undocumented immigrants have degrees in engineering, business, communications and social sciences.

There were 3.3 million mixed-status households in the U.S. in 2014. Removing undocumented residents from these households will reduce the median household income from $41,300 to $22,000—a drop of $19,300, or 47%—which would plunge millions of U.S. families into poverty.

The nation’s housing market could be jeopardized because a high percentage of the 1.2 million mortgages held by households with undocumented immigrants would be in peril. Gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4% in the first year, and cumulative GDP would decline by $4.7 trillion over 10 years. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office projects that a surge in immigration would increase GDP by $8.9 trillion by 2034 and decrease the deficit by $900 billion.

It has also been estimated that a mass deportation effort would cost $88 billion per year, while a conservative estimate puts the cost of a one-time operation at $315 billion. However, this does not take into account the cost of sustained deportation efforts, which include establishing 24 times the current ICE detention facilities, building 1,000 more immigration courtrooms to process the high volume and chartering more ICE flights to deport a million immigrants per year. The cost of these efforts has already started to take shape—each of President Trump’s deportation flights cost up to $852,000. Additionally, there would be a myriad of other ancillary costs.

It is also important to note that the sectors most impacted by mass deportations—agriculture, construction and hospitality—will lose between 7% and 13% of their workforces. These industries are already facing labor shortages. According to the American Immigration Counsel, in the meatpacking industry alone, 26% of transportation workers are undocumented immigrants. Losing such a large share of the agricultural workforce would decrease production, forcing the U.S. to import more food from Mexico and Canada—two of the largest exporters of agricultural products to the U.S. However, these goods would then be subject to President Trump’s proposed 25% tariff on imports from those countries, leading to higher food costs for U.S. consumers.

Not only do undocumented immigrants contribute significantly to the U.S. economy, but deporting them would come at an immense cost. Mass deportations would severely hinder economic growth, reduce GDP, push millions of U.S. households into poverty, and disrupt food supplies. Although they are not citizens, undocumented immigrants have proven to be productive members of society and crucial to the U.S. economy.