Do worksite immigration raids really free up jobs for citizens?

[struggle4progress]

by Nigel Duara and Jeanne Kuang
July 8, 2025

... While one stated purpose of worksite raids is to remove illegal competition from the labor marketplace, the reality is far messier: Studies have found that immigration raids don’t do much to raise wages – and actually deflate them. Even after a raid, employers are no more likely to use federal immigration verification tools like E-Verify during hiring ...

“They’re taking your jobs, they’re taking your jobs,” Trump told a crowd in Wilmington, N.C., on Sept. 21. “ Every job produced in this country over the last two years has gone to illegal aliens, every job, think of it" ...

Every new job between 2022-2024 was not, in fact, filled by undocumented immigrants. Studies show actually deporting workers en masse from industries that rely on undocumented labor does little for U.S. workers. Giovanni Peri, a UC Davis economist who has studied the economic impacts of deportations in the 1930s and during the Obama administration, has found doing so actually reduces job opportunities for American-born workers ...

What does tend to happen, according to a study last year by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, is that raids lead to more job turnover while showing little net change in the employment rate ...

https://calmatters.org/justice/2025/07/worksite-immigration-raids/

[msongs]

1. raids are about fear, they have little to no practical value IMO nt

[pat_k]

2. The U.S. is addicted to its underground economy.

The 47 regime's terror tactics are aimed to accomplish one thing: Massive "self-deportation." Yes, they are hellbent on deporting large numbers, but the real goal is an even more massive outflow of "self-deportees."

If they succeed, and actually dismantle the underground economy, the entire U.S. economy will shrink and teeter.

And once again, pissed off Americans will vote out Republicans and look to Democrats to "fix" it all. Tragically, this time, the government, economy, healthcare system, scientific infrastructure, safety nets, on and on, will be broken like they have never been broken before.