President Donald Trump’s immigration raids and checkpoints are weighing on the labor market, leading to fewer jobs for both U.S.-born men without a college degree as well as undocumented immigrants, according to an economic study out this week.
Increased immigration arrests led to 4 to 5 percent lower employment of undocumented immigrants, especially among men, who made up 90 percent of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, nonpartisan research organization.
The study also found that one U.S.-born worker with a high school degree or less loses a job for every six undocumented male workers who leave their jobs, according to the study.
The study is the first of its kind analyzing the labor market impacts of heightened immigration enforcement last year.
The Trump administration has touted its efforts to deport undocumented workers as a way to help Americans in the labor market. But the research shows that deportations are having a chilling effect.
“We are showing, using the best available real-time data on the second Trump administration, that heightened ICE activity has been really harmful for the labor market, not only for immigrant workers who remain in the U.S. but also for U.S.-born workers,” said economist Chloe East, a co-author of the paper.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement responding to the findings that “there is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force, and President Trump’s agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this Administration’s commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws.”
In the parts of the United States that experienced more ICE arrests, there were 7,500 fewer undocumented men in jobs, according to the paper from economists East and Elizabeth Cox. They wrote that ICE enforcement can create a chilling effect, where immigrants work less or stop working altogether out of fear of running into ICE.
The researchers analyzed monthly government employment data in immigrant-heavy sectors in areas that experienced a major surge in ICE arrests in 2025. They compared those findings with the same employment data in areas that did not experience heightened ICE arrests.
The paper’s findings clash with messaging from the Trump administration, which has stated over the past year that American workers benefit from Trump’s immigration crackdown. A White House news release trumpeted this year that “Mass deportations = more jobs,” adding that millions of U.S.-born workershad joined the labor force during the second Trump administration as immigrants shed jobs — findings repeatedly disputed by economists.
East and Cox’s paper validate prior research showing that immigration enforcement hurts U.S.-born workers. They found job losses for U.S.-born workers were concentrated in industries that rely heavily on undocumented men, including agriculture, construction and manufacturing.
A 2024 study on the construction industry showed that deportation of immigrants working in lower-skilled positions, such as roofers and laborers, can lead to the disappearance of work for native-born construction workers, especially those in higher-skilled jobs, such as electricians and plumbers.
“Regardless of whether we’re talking about mass deportations in the 1930s, the 2010s or 2025, the results are really similar, which is that mass deportations are not helpful for the labor market overall and do not create more job opportunities for U.S.-born workers,” East said.
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