Pushing Immigrants Out Slows Economy, Hurts U.S. Workers, Expands National Debt

Northern Plains News points us toward an Economic Policy Institute report on the necessary role immigration plays in preserving America’s economic growth. Short form: as long as Americans keep getting older and having fewer babies, we have to invite immigrants to boost our workforce, hours worked, and economic output. Cutting immigration cuts GDP:

Given this limited scope for policy to boost labor force participation rates, the only other margin along which the labor force could grow is immigration. But the Trump administration is clearly looking to shrink, not expand, net immigration flows. Given this stated policy preference, we also calculate what halving net immigration flows or reducing them to zero would do to CBO’s growth forecasts (for details on how we estimated these, see the data appendix). Very roughly, a halving of net immigration would reduce average annual GDP growth by 0.2 percentage points annually in the coming decade, while reducing net immigration to zero would reduce annual growth by 0.4 percentage points annually [Bivens, 2025.10.07].

Bivens notes that more immigrant workers means more people paying into Social Security and Medicare. Immigrant workers are also good for the rest of us who are still working for a living:

Increases in immigration actually lead to more jobs overall and higher wages for U.S.-born workers, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Bivens warned the loss of immigrant workers will also hurt U.S.-born workers.

“The really immigrant-heavy part of residential construction is maybe the framing, and digging out the foundation,” Bivens explained. “If that doesn’t get done, the part of construction that is more intensive in the use of U.S.-born workers, like maybe the electrician and the plumber, they can’t do their work” [Eric Galatas, “Report: Immigrants Key to Sustaining Social Security, Medicare,” Northern Plains News, 2025.11.09].

The Census Bureau estimate in September that our new anti-immigration policies had already pushed 1.2 million immigrants out of America’s workforce. The National Foundation for American Policy figures that current policies could lose us 6.8 million immigrant workers by 2028 and 15.7 million by 2035, knocking at least a half-percentage point off GDP every year and increasing the national debt:

The combination of the Trump administration’s policies on illegal and legal immigration would increase the total federal debt held by the public by $252 billion by 2028 (in 2025 dollars) and by $1.74 trillion (or $1.42 trillion in 2025 dollars) between 2025 and 2035. The rise in debt does not include billions of dollars in increased federal spending on border and immigration enforcement [National Foundation for American Policy, “The Economic Impact of the Trump Administration’s Immigration Policies,” 2025.10.17].

Shrink the workforce, shrink the economy, increase the national debt—an objective observer might think someone at the top was sabotaging the American economy.