One day suddenly all Mexican immigrants disappear from the United States. A family, without his maid, faces chaos as he saw his home dirty, with filthy clothes and unable to find some foods. A farmer has no one to harvest. Employees disappear from a restaurant and there is no one to clean cars in the jet lava. This is just a fictional story, from the movie one DAY WITHOUT MEXICANSbrought to movie screens in 2004 by director Sergio Arau.
The situation portrayed by Arau is only a fanciful and absurd fiction, but demonstrates how US society depends economically and affectionately on immigrants, not only on its southern neighbor, but from many other countries, including Latin American.
In his White House election campaign, President Donald Trump announced that, if elected, he would do “the largest domestic operation of deportations in American history”, forced from the country, all the millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States, until the end of its term.
A survey released in July last year by the Pew Research Center showed that there were about 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2022. This population offered, according to the survey, a contingent of 8.3 million workers for the US economy.
Fears that Trump can put his campaign promises into practice after thousands of immigrants were arrested by immigration agents and deported to their home countries, such as Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, a few days after assuming the North Presidency American.
According to researchers heard by Brazil agencyIf Trump decides to deport all illegal immigrants and have the resources to do so, the situation can have a huge labor deficit that could have devastating impacts on the US economy.
Reuters/Latif Adrees/Reproduction Prohibited
Economy
“If we consider that Trump’s rhetoric will be realized, the impact on the ordinary American would be absurd. Several industries would be placed in chaos, at least in the short term, particularly the food industry, which is absolutely dependent on underemployed labor, illegal immigrant, ”says the researcher of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Thaddeus Gregory.
The teacher of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) Carla Beni explains that the sectors of fruit and dairy collection, for example, would be very affected. “The large population that works on farms, performing all this production, which works on a much larger scale than the American would work, receives less because it has no documentation. He has no documentation and is exploited by the American entrepreneur or even by another immigrant businessman who is already legalized. ”
Gregory explains that these jobs are available to any American, but “most don’t want to work by collecting tomatoes at $ 5 per hour.” “Like them [empresários] Will you realize this huge need for cheap labor? ”He points out.
According to him, another sector that must suffer from the lack of labor is that of services. “Particularly, small businesses will be affected, such as that gardening company, which employs six or seven salvaders, which does not know how their immigration situation is because [o empresário] Don’t ask. And many of these small companies ironically have owners who are supporters of Trump. It is the small American bourgeoisie, which will be very affected. ”
A mass deportation project of immigrants will probably raise the price of labor in the United States, explains the history of history of America Roberto Moll, from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF).
“Consequently, this will raise prices and inflation. This may force the Federal Reserve, the Central Bank of the United States, to raise interest rates. Together, in this scenario, probably, companies based in the United States, especially in more endogenous sectors of the economy, would lose even more competitiveness, ”says Moll.
The fear of deportation by illegal immigrants can also have an apparently contradictory effect: an even greater exploitation of workers who are not deported. For fear of demanding better salaries and better working conditions, these people can be subjected to even more pronounced precariousness.
“They will be subject to even more degrading and more poorly paid work so that they are not reported to the government by the employer. Then they will accept some even more irregular conditions for them. Undoubtedly, these immigrants unfortunately end up being a cheap labor reserve and the situation than those who stay, right, who are not deported, can still get worse, ”explains the coordinator of the World Political Analysis Laboratory (Labmundo) , Rubens Duarte.
Society
The mass deportations go beyond the economic side. More than 4.4 million children and adolescents born in the United States live with an unauthorized immigrant, according to the Pew Research Center. “Mass deportation will separate families in which one or more members are immigrants without permanence documentation,” explains Roberto Moll.
Deported from the United States receive food from the government of Amazonas at Manaus Airport. Photo: GOV AM/DISCLOSURE
“Probably a quarter of the American population is potentially affected by these decisions, afraid that they and their beloved beings can be deported. Obviously, there will be much more vulnerable populations by this policy than others. So the true number that will be affected, we don’t know, ”says Thaddeus Gregory.
Fear and distrust, by the way, are some of the impacts of a zero tolerance policy on unauthorized immigration. “In fact, here we get into another problem, which is to tear the social fabric because you break confidence. This Trump policy is a policy that encourages the complaint. Then it encourages the person to call and report the immigrant neighbor. Then you end up causing gigantic panic in the population, ”adds Carla Beni.
For Rubens Duarte, deportations show a contradictory and hypocritical side, since the United States is a nation whose population is mostly formed by immigrants.
According to the Pew Research Center survey, there were approximately 48 million foreigners living in the United States in 2022, of which 77% were in legal situation, including naturalized citizens, permanent residents or temporary residents. The estimate considers only those born outside the US.
According to the US Census 2022, only 4.4 million inhabitants belong to peoples who originally occupied the territories of the continental and Hawaii United States, before the arrival of Europeans in the fifteenth century, or only 1.3% of the total of the population (331 million). Which means that more than 98% are immigrants or their descendants.
“This country of immigrants, which often celebrates what they call Melting potthat is, a cultural and ethnic cauldron, now close the doors, handcuff people and expel from the country. Of course this will have consequences in building the identity of the American, how they perceive themselves and how the rest of the world perceives them. So, surely there will be a very big impact on the identity construction of the US from now on, ”says Duarte.
Trump
Experts say, however, that it is not yet possible to say whether Donald Trump’s management will do what the Republican President has promised campaigning. “It all depends on how Trump’s rhetoric will be transformed into effective actions. His rhetoric is of the most terrible possible. If this will translate into a real increase in deportations, we still have to see. It’s too early to say something, ”says Thaddeus Gregory.
For Roberto Moll, it is necessary to wait for the impacts that deportation policies will have on US economy and society to find out if Trump will keep a hard line against immigrants or not. According to him, if the effects are harmful to companies, these entrepreneurs may press the president to mitigate these measures.
On the other hand, the policy of imprisonment and deportation will be able to move the economy of the safety sector and increase the insecurity of workers, causing this to reduce the cost of labor.
“In all these scenarios, Trump reinforces the narrative that he is fulfilling his promise to expel immigrants. This strategy is especially relevant to meet the wishes of impoverished white workers who joined the trumpper base, motivated by resentment and xenophobic discourse, which blames immigrants by working middle -class problems in the United States. ”
