President Trump’s aggressive push on immigration enforcement has produced results few in his administration predicted. Instead of opening positions for U.S.-born workers, heightened ICE activity has slowed hiring, reduced output in key sectors and left measurable gaps in local labor markets. New studies document the pattern with striking consistency.
One analysis ties the administration’s surge in arrests directly to hundreds of thousands of lost positions. Fortune reported Friday that a Brookings Institution study found 668,000 jobs evaporated in 86 cities that experienced the sharpest rise in ICE enforcement during the first half of 2025. Researchers calculated roughly 13 lost jobs for each excess arrest. Between 51,000 and 297,000 of those positions belonged to American-born workers.
The mechanism is straightforward. Visible raids generate fear. Workers stay home. Customers avoid stores and restaurants. Businesses scale back operations. “Enforcement at this scale and speed — visible, shocking, designed to produce fear beyond the directly targeted population — destroys jobs, disrupts businesses that Americans own and run, and depresses the local economies in which Americans live and work,” wrote Brookings authors Marcela Escobari, Ian Seyal and Paul Beach.
Construction felt the blow hardest. So did agriculture, manufacturing and wholesale trade. Yet losses spread further. Arts and entertainment saw sharp drops even though few immigrants work in those fields. The reason? Reduced foot traffic and spending. Employers trimmed staff across the board when revenue slipped.
Complement, Not Substitute
Earlier research reached similar conclusions. A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper from April 2026, titled “Labor Market Impacts of ICE Activity in Trump 2.0,” examined areas with larger increases in arrests against those with smaller increases. Authors Elizabeth Cox and Chloe N. East found a 4 percent decline in employment among likely undocumented men who remained in the country. Men accounted for more than 90 percent of arrests.
For every six undocumented workers who stopped working, one U.S.-born worker lost a job. The effect concentrated among men without college degrees in immigrant-heavy industries. No evidence emerged that employers raised wages to attract American replacements. Demand for labor simply contracted. The New York Times noted on May 19 that construction suffered most. American-born workers there lost more positions than the undocumented immigrants who left.
But the data show no positive effects on employment or wages for U.S.-born workers overall. In fact, the opposite occurred in sectors reliant on immigrant labor. “The mass deportations in Trump 2.0 are not helping the labor market overall and not creating more job opportunities for U.S.-born workers,” East told NPR in its May 12 report on the chilling effect.
The Washington Post summarized the NBER findings on May 5: increased raids lowered employment for undocumented immigrants by 4 to 5 percent and produced a negative and significant impact on U.S.-born men with at most a high-school education. Employers did not respond by hiring natives. They slowed work instead.
Forbes covered the same paper on May 5, quoting the finding that undocumented immigrants and U.S.-born workers function as complements rather than substitutes. The administration’s central justification for the policy — that removing undocumented labor would free jobs for Americans — found no support in the numbers.
Local economies absorbed additional hits. A separate study tracked foot traffic and spending around more than 5,000 ICE raids. Foot traffic fell 2.7 percent and spending dropped 6.2 percent per point of interest per week, according to research cited by Forbes on May 19. That translated to billions in foregone economic activity in a single year. Consumer caution spread beyond immigrant communities.
Small businesses reported particular strain. Owners in construction, food service and care industries described scrambling to maintain operations as regular staff disappeared. Some kept doors open by delivering goods directly or adjusting schedules. Many simply reduced hours or closed temporarily. The fear extended to legal residents and even U.S. citizens in mixed-status households.
Yet the White House continues to project confidence. Recent statements highlight demand for skilled trades and point to factory reshoring under tariff policies. Official data show construction employment added tens of thousands of positions in certain months. Broader labor market indicators, however, paint a more mixed picture. Private-sector job growth slowed in states with intensive enforcement operations.
The Brookings team concluded that shock-and-awe tactics carry steep costs. If the goal is stronger local economies and better prospects for American workers, large-scale visible enforcement inside U.S. cities appears counterproductive. Their comparison of surge cities against others isolated the enforcement effect from broader economic trends.
Other analyses reinforce the point. An Economic Policy Institute estimate projected that deporting millions could eliminate millions more jobs across the economy, with heavy losses in construction, hospitality and care. Previous smaller-scale enforcement episodes produced parallel results: fewer immigrant workers, no wage gains for natives, and net contraction in affected labor markets.
Construction offers the clearest example. Immigrant labor fills roles from roofing to concrete work. When that supply shrinks suddenly, projects stall. Suppliers see lower demand. Truckers haul fewer loads. The multiplier runs in reverse. Homebuilding, already behind schedule in many markets, faces longer delays and higher costs. Those costs pass to buyers. American families pay more for housing while fewer workers earn paychecks on job sites.
The pattern repeats in agriculture. Crops rot when pickers stay home. Processors idle lines. Truckers have less to transport. Each link depends on the one before it. Remove a key input and the chain shortens. Employers do not magically discover a reserve of willing American workers at the prevailing wage. They adjust output downward.
Critics of the policy have seized on the data. Supporters argue enforcement must continue to deter illegal entry and prioritize citizens. The studies do not resolve that debate. They do demonstrate that the immediate labor-market effects diverge from the promised outcome.
Additional reporting from the past week adds texture. The Conversation published an article one day ago summarizing the NBER work and noting that consumer spending and economic activity fell in cities with expanded raids. Axios on May 5 highlighted the absence of job gains for Americans and the employment drain on certain U.S.-born men.
Common Dreams on May 19 called the NBER paper a landmark study showing deportations cost Americans jobs. The piece stressed that employers slowed activity rather than hire natives at higher wages.
So the evidence accumulates. Raids produce fear. Fear reduces participation. Reduced participation contracts demand. American-born workers in complementary roles lose out. No surge in native hiring appears. Wages stay flat. Output falls. The 668,000 figure from Brookings captures only the 86 hardest-hit cities. National effects likely run larger.
Policy makers now confront a choice. Continue the current pace and intensity of enforcement, accepting the documented economic drag. Or adjust tactics toward less visible, more targeted operations that minimize spillover fear. The data offer no support for the claim that mass workplace raids and checkpoints will deliver a net employment boost to U.S.-born workers. They suggest the reverse in the short term.
Longer-term outcomes remain uncertain. Deterrence at the border could eventually reshape labor supply. Reshoring and automation might fill some gaps. Yet the studies released in recent weeks paint a consistent picture of the present: the enforcement surge has not worked as advertised for American workers. It has instead contributed to slower job growth in the very sectors the administration sought to protect.
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