August 18, 2025 – At least 1.2 million foreign-born people left the U.S. labor force between January and July, with potentially harmful consequences to the economy, a new analysis shows.
In a report released last week, Economic Insights and Research Consulting warns that increasing deportations could cause economic damage across the agriculture, hospitality, and construction sectors.
The EIRC researchers—Robert Lynch, professor emeritus of economics at Washington College, and Michael Ettlinger, a public policy researcher at the University of New Hampshire—examined the economic impact of past large-scale deportations, like those from 2008 to 2015. They found past deportations had negative impacts on the U.S.-born workforce—decreasing overall job availability, lowering wages, and increasing the cost of goods.
“There are early warning signs in the data that economic harm in the form of employment losses and higher prices is happening,” Lynch said in a press call explaining the analysis.
While it’s still early into this latest immigration policy shift, preliminary and anecdotal evidence show that deportations are already having an impact on the construction, hospitality, and agriculture sectors, the researchers said.
Unauthorized workers account for at least 25 percent of all agricultural workers in the country and about 42 percent of crop farmworkers, according to EIRC. Over the first several months of the Trump administration, the food and agriculture industry has been hit hard by deportations through ICE raids on farm and restaurants.
Agricultural employment dropped by 6.5 percent from March to July, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics. That’s a significant change from the previous two years, which saw small increases in employment in the sector during the same period.
If deportations continue at current or greater levels, Lynch said, national data will increasingly show economic consequences like business failure, higher unemployment rates, and generally higher costs.
Earlier this year, a Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis found that a significant reduction in the undocumented immigrant population would increase federal deficits and reduce the GDP. In a statement to CNN at the time, the White House pushed back on this assessment and said it fails to account for other metrics.
The administration has also argued that the drop in the undocumented immigrant population creates more job opportunities for U.S.-born individuals, though it has not provided evidence of an increase in jobs. In a statement last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said 1.6 million undocumented immigrants have either left the country or been deported since January, a “massive” win for the Trump administration that would create a “resurgence in local job markets.”
Farm and restaurant groups, however, are warning this trend could have serious economic consequences. “The mass deportation agenda is not just bad immigration policy, it’s economic sabotage that hurts all working families,” said Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of America’s Voice, on a recent press call. America’s Voice advocates for immigration reform that creates pathways to citizenship.
Meanwhile, food prices continue to rise. From April to July, the cost of fresh vegetables and meat increased by 2 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively. This could be due to a number of factors, including tariffs and inflation, but the EIRC analysis argues the Trump administration’s immigration policy could be a factor as well. (Link to this post.)
The post Mass Deportations Are Starting to Hurt Agriculture, Analysis Says appeared first on Civil Eats.