New York, NY—In recognition of International Migrants Day, the New York Immigration Coalition is joining the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) network in urging President Biden and Congress to act decisively during this lame-duck session to protect and defend immigrants from across the country, regardless of immigration status, from Trump’s deportation agenda.
Approximately, 5.5 million U.S. citizen children (including 254,00 New York children) live with at least one undocumented family member. Separating family members would lead to tremendous emotional stress and could also cause economic hardship for many of these mixed-status families who might lose their breadwinners, not to mention the dire consequences for the U.S. economy.
Murad Awawdeh, President and CEO, New York Immigration Coalition, and co-chair of the FIRM Network:
“Donald Trump will remain a clear and present danger to our communities and our economy unless the Biden administration and Congress takes action to protect and defend immigrant workers and American families. The American people do not want to see families torn apart nor do they want to bear the cost of his cruel and dehumanizing agenda. This is the time for our elected leadership to take decisive action by voting against reconciliation bills or proposals that will hurt our economy and expand or fund immigration enforcement and detention. Instead, we demand the Biden administration protect immigrant families, regardless of their immigration status, including those with TPS and DACA, to ensure they can remain with their families and continue contributing to their communities without the threat of ICE around every corner. Separating children from their parents hurts families, and does nothing to benefit our communities, public safety or economy—spiking inflation, driving up deficits, cutting tax revenues, and shrinking GDP and employment alike.”
Background
A recent American Immigration Council report on the costs of mass deportation finds GDP will drop by 4.2-6.8%, which is more than the Great Recession; additional key findings:
- A one-time operation to deport immigrants would cost at least $315 billion, broken down as follows:
- The government would have to spend $89.3 billion to conduct sufficient arrests.
- The government would have to spend $167.8 billion to detain immigrants en masse.
- The government would have to spend $34.1 billion on legal processing.
- The government would have to spend $24.1 billion on removals.
- Deporting one million immigrants per year would incur an annual cost of $88 billion, with the majority of that cost going towards building detention camps.
- It would take over ten years, and the building of hundreds to thousands of new detention facilities, to arrest, detain, process,and remove all 13.3 million targeted immigrants—even assuming that 20 percent of that population would depart voluntarily during any multi-year mass deportation effort.
- The total cost over 10.6 years (assuming an annual inflation rate of 2.5 percent) would be $967.9 billion.